


Pirates!

by marlowe78



Series: Parallel issues [6]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Donna and Pete and Jackie are minor characters, F/M, Gen, Historical References, Light Angst, Pete's World (Doctor Who), Pirates, Time Travel, but there is a kid, i did research, not a kidfic really, sorry - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-09
Updated: 2020-01-18
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:07:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 56,497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22187578
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marlowe78/pseuds/marlowe78
Summary: Rose took a deep breath, clearly trying to reign in her temper. It didn’t seem to be working very well, because she was still spitting mad when she continued. “Because! We’ve been to every bloody concert in the entire bloody last three decades! Eighties, nineties, seventies! And I just bloody well have enough now!”Rose never liked constraints, and truthfully, neither does the Doctor. Or his biological whatchamaycallit. A trip to the Caribbean sounds just like the thing.
Relationships: Metacrisis Tenth Doctor/Rose Tyler
Series: Parallel issues [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1521308
Comments: 11
Kudos: 27





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Remember where we left off? The last time we saw them, the Doctor had shown Rose the Vortex Manipulator and invited her for a trip. 
> 
> Now you're all caught up. Have fun! It's long, but all finished and will be posted regularly.

It had all started with a fight. Not a fight-to-the-death kind of fight, or even the bare-knuckle-fighting fight. No. Oh no. 

It had been a common, boring little fight, traditionally known as a ‘row’, between him and Rose, and he wasn’t even one hundred percent certain how it had started. It had probably been his fault, he would say, because most things tended to be his fault. He couldn’t quite understand, though, how _exactly_ it would be his. It still probably was.

****

“What is wrong with Woodstock? Why shouldn’t we go see Woodstock?”

“Nothing is wrong with bloody Woodstock!”

“Then why are we yelling at each other?”

“Because…” Rose took a deep breath, clearly trying to reign in her temper. It didn’t seem to be working very well, because she was still spitting mad when she continued. “Because! We’ve been to every bloody concert in the entire bloody last three decades! Eighties, nineties, seventies! And I just bloody well have enough now!”

“But you like music! I like music – why can’t we go see great music and have fun?”

She put her hands into her hips and glared triumphantly, clearly certain he’d made a mistake now. “Well, why don’t we go check out the music of 2030 then?” Oh – well. Good one.

Now, how to get yourself out of this, Doctor? “Because we don’t even know when the concerts are gonna be, and we don’t know any bands of that time.” Ha! 

“Oh? So it doesn’t have anything to do with you being scared witless about going to the future, does it, Doctor?”

He glared right back. Of course, that was ridiculous. He wasn’t scared! 

More like bloody terrified. 

“No!” Because knowing and admitting were two very different things, and he’d never been good at the second and way too certain about the first. “No, it doesn’t, Rose. I thought we were having fun, but excuse me for messing that up!” He was also not very good with guilt-tripping, mostly because it made him feel guilty whenever it worked. Donna had tried to teach him how to do it properly, but it never quite worked for him, despite having – Donna’s words – the perfect ‘puppy-eyes’ for doing it efficiently.

Rose was still – or again? – glaring at him, with a hint of disappointment in her face that stung more than the yelling. “You said you know me, but all you’ve done was take me to concert after concert, and apart from getting high as a kite once or twice, nothing bloody happened on any of them! It’s like a kindergarten-trip to the petting-zoo! What has happened to your sense of adventure, Doctor? Or have you lost your touch? Should I try the manipulator for a bit, see if we can find something more interesting, huh?” 

How he hated that mocking tone of her. He loved Rose, absolutely, but she could be quite nasty if she was truly angry. Her words dripped sarcasm and he had a feeling there might be actual blood at the end of this fight. If he’d had any sense, he’d stop arguing right now and leave the room to cool down. The real Doctor – _the one with the sense of adventure_ , a nasty voice inside him whispered – would have frozen it down and let it rest until it lost meaning. But he was running too hot right now to let it go. Go toss yourself from a bloody cliff, _Doctor_!

“My sense of adventure? Oh, I don’t know?” he snarled, “Maybe it got a bit singed when people started jumping through dimensions in a bloody cannon, endangering the whole universe – and not just one! So of course, it would be a _great_ idea to let such people control the vortex manipulator. That makes perfect sense.” 

His words had scored, he knew, from the way the skin around her eyes changed tension. It didn’t make him feel any better and her next salve was quick to hit back. “Oh? Well, I distinctly remember that the bloody cannon-hopping turned out not too shabby for you! Wouldn’t be alive if I hadn’t, if I recall correctly. But maybe that’s where your sense of adventure is – still left in the other universe!”

He balled his fists and clenched his teeth, fighting to keep the words inside which threatened to spill out. He wouldn’t be able to take them back, and whatever sense of vindication he might get from it, it would destroy more than it was worth. 

“What?” Rose snapped, “cat got your tongue? I’m right, am I not?” Her eyes hadn’t lost their fire, and she was still reeling for a fight. She was stunningly beautiful like this and he knew she had a point, which made this fight so infuriating. Rose really wanted more than just safe travels to interesting moments in musical history, and he’d feared this exact thing when he’d started their trips. But only a very small part felt elation about having been right. “You’re babysitting me! Trying to keep me occupied so I won’t hop back into the other universe, is that it?”

“No!” he yelled back. He’d do a lot of things to keep her with him, but she wasn’t a prisoner. And sure… he’d certainly take a lot of measures to guarantee that nobody would ever again open a link between universes, and that included her, but it wasn’t anything to do with Rose specifically. He’d never even thought that she needed supervision in that regard! “I promise, that’s not it.”

“Oh, so there _is_ reason behind this?” There were tears in her eyes, glittering in the corners and threatening to fall. She was still angry but what he now saw most was hurt and betrayal. 

He sighed, defeated. “Of course there is. And it has nothing to do with you. Well… maybe a little, but more in general terms as with you personally.” Now that the battle was lost, he just felt weary and tired. He dragged himself off into the living-room, knowing Rose would follow, and slumped into the armchair. He loved the thing, old and worn as it was. They’d gotten it from a flea market together, and while he sagged into the cushion, he distantly wondered why, even after all their big and small arguments, he still felt like the carpet would be dragged out from under him whenever they had another. It had been a year and more since he got here – he should be used to this by now. 

Rose leaned against the doorway, not yet certain of her victory or maybe not sure if she had even fought to win. When he kept stalling by picking at the loose thread in the pillow on his lap, she growled and straightened. “Out with it.”

With eyes closed, he tried to order his thoughts and reasons behind his choice of trips. “You’re right, I’m playing it safe. The concerts are well-documented, I know what to expect and I know the exact dates and lengths and pretty much everything about them. I can time exactly when we arrive, how long we’re there and when to leave. It’s… well. It’s safe. Utterly safe.” He heard her clothes as she changed position and yet he kept avoiding to look at her. It made him feel small and shameful to admit the things he was going to admit now. He didn’t need interruption. 

Rose, of course, wasn’t on the same page and was still grumpy. “So what, you don’t trust me to take care of myself now? In case you hadn’t noticed, I’ve been doing that just fine these last years. With or without you!”, she snapped. 

“I know! And it’s not you that needs protecting.” Though of course she did, because he always would want to, but he wasn’t going to tell her that. “And no, not me, either,” he muttered.

“It’s the timelines,” she breathed in realization. “You’re trying to prote- no.” She stopped. Then went on. “No, you’re scared that we’ll destroy them or mess them up.” He didn’t answer. She knew it already, after all. “Doctor?”

Giving up, he nodded. “Yes.” He ran his hand over the top of his head, checking for the spot on the temple where he’d suffered a nasty headwound. Some of his hairs hadn’t grown back brown but were now silvery-white. He could feel the difference – they were coarser than the rest of them, too. “And … I might have jumped ahead with this, I should have known… should have kept it a bit longer, run more tests. But I… I wanted to go and didn’t want to wait longer and… stupid. So stupid.”

“What do you mean with tests?” Her voice had changed from furious to grumpy, and maybe a little bit of trepidation. “And will you look at me when we’re talking?”

He didn’t particularly want to, though, so he just blinked up in her direction and concentrated on the pillow’s thread again. If he told her about the extensive tests he’d done, the small jumps back and forth in a very controlled environment – just inside his lab, just a few minutes backwards and forwards and then moving in space instead of in time for _weeks_ until he was certain, absolutely certain, that the manipulator was working and safe. If he told her how he hit up certain fixed points in history to get a feel for them after that – things like Hitler’s election to power, the signing of the Declaration of US Independence, Leonardo DaVinci painting the Monica Lisa – without taking her along… Well. Maybe if he’d told her earlier, she might have understood. As things were right now, volatile and dangerously close to Rose sleeping at her parents’ house tonight, telling her all this might make her pack more than an overnight bag. 

But he could hear her getting impatient and it raised his hackles in defence. “Well of course I tested it! Do you think I would just jump through the vortex without knowing we’ll come out alive at the other end? I wanted to make you happy, give you a little bit back of what you lost without a Tardis, but I should have been more patient and waited until I knew more about where to tread without causing catastrophic disruptions.” 

“Oh no.” She stepped in front of him, into his space so he was forced to look at her. He tried to glare, but truthfully, he was too tired to keep up his metaphorical fists in their match of temper. “Don’t put this all on me. You wanted time-hopping just as much as I did, if not more. But that’s not even the issue now… You’re telling me you tested them, jumped along time _without telling me about it_? Are…” Finally, he looked up and saw her face, still angry, still beautiful and … scared? Rose swallowed visibly. “You left here without even telling me and you could have died at any of these little tests, and then what would I have left? A disappeared Doctor, with no note and no clue and –“ Her voice broke off and she stepped back and visibly pulled herself together. 

Apparently, he didn’t even have to tell her the details of his tests. She got there all on her own. “I did leave a note,” he murmured because _that_ had clearly been her biggest issue… Stupid Doctor-brain!

“That’s not the point!” she yelled, finally completely furious. He’d done it, pushed her over the top and now she was angry and crying and shaking and when he stood to touch her, wanted to comfort her because he felt her pain like an ache in his heart, she stepped back and slapped his hand away. “Don’t you dare! I’m so mad right now, I don’t want you touching me! Leave me alone and … Just… just go! Before I do something I’ll regret. Now! Piss off!”

So he did. Like the Doctor, always leaving when things got difficult. Always the coward, but not always in a good way.

****

He found himself in the small park right around the corner of their flat. It was a sunny day, warm and pleasant on an August Friday. Originally, he’d planned to be in Bethel, New York in 1969 – pretty much the same date, really. A few days off. Admittedly, he’d chosen the date and the place for safety-reasons, but he’d really been looking forward to it, not just for the music and the coolness-factor but mostly because he’d really wanted to play ‘spot the differences’ with Rose.

Maybe they could do it another time, maybe even take Donna. She’d think it a hoot, he was certain. This universe’s Donna was a lot less restricted with her emotions, less guarded and less self-deprecating but still as sharp-tongued and quick-witted as her counterpart. It was probably due to her mother being less of a harpy, the Doctor thought, and Wilf being a more decisive personality when it came to calling out his own daughter. Maybe even the divorce of Donna’s parents. If he were in any way psychologically trained, he’d probably find a lot of reasons for Sylvia Noble to be as cutting as she was in the parallel world, but he didn’t really want to analyse it anyway. 

Briefly, he’d thought about calling Donna after he’d left the flat but it wouldn’t be right. For one, he’d have to explain all their time-hopping to her, and while Donna was accepting of their story nowadays, she still thought they were completely bonkers. He’d planned on telling her right before taking her on a grand trip to somewhere, in the near future, but for now, this was just for Rose and him. Fat lot of good that had been. Well done, Doctor… 

The other reason he hadn’t called Donna was that he couldn’t run to his friend all the time there was a little roadblock in his relationship with Rose. He wanted to but he knew Rose didn’t have anyone like Donna in her life. Well. She had _Donna_ , but apart from a few ‘ladies’ nights’ out, she was content to be good friends with her, not best mates. He didn’t want to overuse the privilege of having a best mate when all Rose really had was her mother and Pete. 

Yes, he was very aware that he didn’t have parents so actually Rose had one over him there, but talking to your parents wasn’t the same as unloading to your best friend, he knew, and that’s why he was in the park, on the swings, kicking sand with his feet to see how far it could fly. Calculations were running in the background of his mind; trajectories, angles, wind-factor, gravity. But watching the grains was different than calculating their probable flight-routes, just as much as watching a supernova was different from knowing what was going on in the middle of it. In another part of his brain, he was thinking about all the possible ways he could have handled the confrontation with Rose, the ways he could have lessened the impact and the hurt. Sadly, apart from telling her about his safety-measures earlier, not much would have changed the outcome. And as tempting as it was, jumping back in time to tell her so was not recommended. 

He sighed and looked over to the second swing, where Rose was now sitting silently. Probably thinking… no. No, he wouldn’t assume her thoughts. Whenever he did, he turned out to be wrong so he would from now on force himself to wait until her reactions actually happened instead of predicting them and acting according to his predictions. He’d probably live longer that way. 

She was silent as he was, not kicking the sand but digging the toes of her summer-sandals into the ground, making a small crater. The sun shone on their backs, warming him into a pleasant mood. He liked warmth, he found, and summer with its possibility to wear a t-shirt with smart puns on them was very much turning into his favourite season. 

“I should have told you about the tests,” he said after they’d been sitting together-apart for a good while. “I just didn’t know how to tell you about it without you wanting to come along.” 

He saw her lips tighten but she didn’t look as angry as before. 

“And I’m sorry for that. Also sorry for not telling you my reasons for only going to safe places, making you think that it meant I don’t trust you, if that is what you thought. I shouldn’t make assumptions; I’m trying to stop that from now on. But,” he said, not waiting if she wanted to say anything, “I’m not sorry for choosing those concerts, for staying safe. I’ve thought about it, and you can call me a coward all you want – it’s still the most sensible thing to do.” He thought he heard her snort a little, but when he looked over, her face was calm and she was still not looking at him. He got the impression that she was very much listening, though. 

“I know you want more, adventure and fun and new things to discover. And I want that, too. But Rose, I don’t know _anything_ about this universe’s timelines. Nothing. I can’t read them like I used to, like the original Doctor can. I don’t know all that is, will be, can be and shall never happen, and while I can still predict things based on what I know from the Academy, it’s hard work and will take quite a while until I can safely say where to jump and when to land. I’m restricting us to Earth for now, to the past, because at least there I know what to expect. Everything in the future is as unknown to me as it is to you, and it might be thrilling for you to do it but – and I’m sorry I’ll have to say it, but I will anyway – the last time you jumped through time and space, you had a very, very good safety-net who would have caught you whatever happened. I can’t give you that yet, maybe never, and if I made a mistake we’ll never be able to return. Or worse, die somewhere on a moon without oxygen. That is not a good way to die. I suspect that most ways we could die in the universe aren’t very pleasant, and all of them could happen. If we get separated, if the manipulator gets lost or breaks, then we’re lost. No Tardis to come to the rescue, no-one out here who has even a slight possibility of finding us. It might be thrilling and exciting for you, the not-knowing. I don’t know. But it’s bloody terrifying for me. I’ve never been in this position. I’ve been without the Tardis, of course, but I’ve _always_ been able to see time and history and future and known what not to do. That is a very, very good crutch to have, and one I’m missing even more than my Tardis. So while I’m very sorry for being too clandestine about all of this, I can’t be sorry for the reasons behind it. And I will continue being so careful for a while still, and if that’s not what you want, well… I’m not forcing you to come with me. You could wait until it gets more interesting, I guess.”

When he’d started talking, he hadn’t imagined such a long speech. He’d only wanted to apologize to Rose for making her upset, but it wouldn’t stay so simple. She was right to ask for more truth and openness, and that included all he’d just said. He would also tell her in the near future that the manipulator was locked to his own DNA and wouldn’t work on anyone - _anyone_ else, but right now it could be interpreted as a punishment for Rose and that was very much not it. He’d put that DNA-lock in to prevent strangers being able to use it, steal it and damage the world through either malice or stupidity. He had planned to build – or preferably, find – a manipulator for herself, though, because being dependent on just one of the things was dangerous. They got separated an awful lot during the travels in the Tardis, and she would have to be able to get home alone if something terrible happened to him. But that was in the future. For now, they’d have to stick close together if they wanted to hop.

He very much wanted to hop, because even his little kindergarten-trips to the petting zoo gave him something he couldn’t quite name. Maybe ‘contentment’ came close enough. 

Rose had listened to his words without interruption and now she took a long, deep breath. Like he had, she kept her gaze fixed on the sand or on the little sycamore a few feet away, not trying for eye-contact. “I was so mad at you when you said you have been testing the device. So spitting mad.” He felt the urge to interrupt but fought it. The least he could do was listen. “See, one moment I’m furious that you’re keeping us tethered to the safe and proper and the next you tell me that I could have lost you forever any moment in the last… I don’t even know how long. No, don’t tell me.” She held up her hand with a quick glance towards him. He smiled cautiously, but he couldn’t tell if she’d seen it. “And it just made me even madder. ‘cause it took all the righteousness out of my anger.” From the corner of his eye, he saw a bitter little twist on her mouth. “Suddenly, all I’ve been mad about seemed so petty. And now I was angry about my anger being taken away and on top of that for you being so bloody selfish again and putting yourself in danger without me even knowing. ‘s why you had to leave because I didn’t know if I wanted to hurt you. No.” She frowned “No, I do know that I wanted to hurt you, but I didn’t actually.” She looked at him now, her beautiful eyes fixed right on his own. “I’m sorry for being so petty and saying nasty things. I’m still mad that you’ve kept so many secrets. But now at least I’m mad at you for the right reason.”

She looked back at the tree and after a few seconds, he followed her example. Later, he wouldn’t be able to say how long they’d been sitting there, alone but together, until they made their way back. Rose stopped in front of their door. “I’ve… I need to run a bit. See you later.” And with that, she turned her back and walked off, starting to trot as she reached the next building. He swallowed. Being human was very hard, he had come to realize. The personal battle of running hot-mad one moment and cold-scared the next was taxing, and the pits and peaks inside his chest right now wouldn’t stop turning his stomach. He wanted to go with her, take everything back he said that made her angry or sad, but at the same time he knew he was right and it was right to say his piece. As a Time Lord, of course his emotions had similarly affected him. He’d been in love, flying high above the sky and then he fell down into a deep, dark pit of misery when Rose was taken away from him. Maybe, in hindsight, his moods had been even less balanced as a Time Lord than they were now, as a single-hearted chimera, but his human body was completely uncontrollable. He _actually_ ran cold when afraid and hot when angry, he sweated for either situation and sometimes his hands shook and his skin tightened and he knew he had the worst poker-face ever because he wasn’t used to being so out of control of his cells. 

He let himself into the flat and dispassionately took everything in. The table was still set from their breakfast and without thought, he started to put everything away. Cleaning wasn’t his favourite thing in the world – in fact, the favourite thing was Mrs Walker, who came by once a week to clean their flat – but he could do it and it was boring and didn’t need active thought so he just continued on from the kitchen until he grabbed one of his history-books and put himself on the couch, looking for more interesting places to go on their next trip.


	2. Chapter 2

Rose had run until her lungs burned and she thought she would puke blood. Everything hurt, everything, from the little toes up to the roots of her hair. While she was gasping for breath, bowed over somewhere in a park she didn’t recognize, her head was pleasantly empty. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d run like this, completely without a plan, with no desire to pace herself or any idea when she would stop – or if she would just drop dead. She hadn’t run like this without the Doctor for a long time, she had realized at one particular street-corner, where she’d used the handily-placed street-lamp for pivoting. It was … nice. 

“Are you alright, Miss?” A young man with a Superman-t-shirt asked, keeping a careful distance. 

She held up her hand and straightened a little. “Yeah, thanks. Just run too fast. I’m alright.”

“’Kay. If you say so…” He didn’t sound convinced but walked off, his little fluffy dog turning back twice to look at Rose distrustfully. 

She took another deep gulp of air and held it until her lungs felt like they were expanding, then let it out through her nose. She was fine. She would be absolutely fine. Fighting among couples was absolutely normal. She’d been angry at the Doctor more than once; it wasn’t exactly the first time. 

The sun was starting to lose its power, so it was probably after six now. The air was still warm enough for her to sweat underneath the sweat from running and she would have time enough to walk home before it got cold enough to be uncomfortable if she decided to. She could also call a cab, probably. 

With a sigh, she picked one of the park-benches a few feet away and sat to get her thoughts in order. She wasn’t exactly mad at him anymore. Well… no, she was still mad at him. But it was a strange anger, nothing specific for her to pinpoint. His reasons had been sound, she had to admit, and her fury over his need for safety had evaporated and transformed in a strange mixture of shame and annoyance. She was ashamed for being angry at him for actually taking both theirs and the world’s safety into account. On the other hand, she was still annoyed about it and of course at him for being so bloody secretive. She would have understood if he’d just talked to her! 

Was it too much to ask to be included? To at least get the benefit of a warning that he was testing time-travel devices in secret without a safety-measure? Rose balled her fists. This infuriating _plonker_! Why couldn’t he be a little less like the original Doctor sometimes and a little more like Mickey? 

She chuckled at herself. As if that’s what she really wanted. Hadn’t he been exactly like Mickey with his caution, and hadn’t she just brilliantly expressed how much she didn’t want that? 

The worst thing, though, was that the Doctor was right. Not about excluding her, that was something she wouldn’t tolerate. But his points about time-travel and them not knowing anything about this universe would have stood on their own even if you didn’t add in his … disability in comparison to the real Doctor. 

She shouldn’t have thrown his understandable and appropriate caution in his face. Guilt about her word-choices was gnawing on her, and it annoyed her to no end because he had been just as harsh and why was _she_ here, feeling guilty?

_Because you ran away, Rose,_ her inner voice reminded her. _Because that’s really mature and all._

Great. Now she was annoyed at her inner voice, too. 

With a sigh, she stood and looked around, trying to find a cab. She was too tired for walking and she wanted to see if the two of them were good again. They would be, right? He wouldn’t sleep on the couch tonight; he would hold her and tell her some nice, trivial things until she fell asleep because even if he drove her round the bend sometimes, even if she felt in the right to have been angry, he was still more important than the stupid little trip-machine he had there.

****

The cabby waited at the kerb until she’d gone in to fetch some money. She was quick, in and out in less than a minute, and yet it bothered her that the Doctor hadn’t been there to embrace her, tell her he was sorry once more, kiss her. Well, saying ‘hello’ would have been fine, too, but nothing. So when Rose stepped into the flat the second time, she was already a little miffed again, despite having gotten rid of most of her anger.

“Doctor?”

No answer. Had he gone out? A chill ran over her back – he wouldn’t have jumped without her, right?

_Calm down, Rose_ her inner voice nudged her, _You know he wouldn’t. He’s probably asleep._

But he wasn’t. The bed was empty, but outside the bedroom-window she could see the back of his head so she headed to the living room again and out to the balcony. “Hey,” she said, trying but failing to keep a neutral tone. She wasn’t mad enough anymore to not react to his instant cuteness, especially not when he was curled up like a giant cat in the old, frazzled armchair he’d somehow dragged outside. He was wearing his glasses, which for some reason never failed to turn her insides into a pile of goo, and he had a big, heavy book on his lap. When he looked up at her he blinked like he’d been far, far away and the giant cat turned into a quizzical owl, no less cute. 

Oh, damn his Time Lord genes, but he was just too adorable to hold a grudge against. 

“Rose!” he perked up and tried to untangle himself. In his haste to put the book down without damaging either the spine or the balcony’s structure – it was really heavy! – he had probably forgotten that his feet tended to fall asleep when he sat cross-legged for too long because he tried to spring up and instead just buckled. She winced in sympathy and rushed over to help him get up, not quite able to hold in the chuckles. It amazed her that this weird, lanky, sometimes incredibly inept person was the same one who’d made Daleks shiver in their shells, but it only showed that people tended to forgot that the inside was important, not just the packaging. 

“Sorry,” he muttered and then he beamed at her, hair on end, glasses askew, nerdy t-shirt rumpled and his loose linen-trousers a collection of wrinkles. “One day I might remember this.” He glared at his feet and seesawed on his toes. “Oh, I don’t like the prickles…” 

Shaking her head, she went to pick up the book. “World History? What’s the occasion?” She had a hunch but would like to hear it out loud before jumping to conclusions.

“Oh,” he awkwardly shoved his hands into his hair, nearly dislodging the glasses completely. Before they could fall, he folded them and went to put them in his pockets, except he didn’t have any. Instead, he put it on the window’s ledge. “Well. Thought I try looking for more interesting places to jump next. If… Uhm. If you’d still be interested?” 

Rose sniffed and set the book onto the chair, tapping the shiny hard-cover with her fingernails. Was she still interested? Yes, of course she was! But they’d just barely refrained from actually hurting each other, she wasn’t sure it was such a smart idea to just go right back into the fray. At Torchwood, they were teaching the teams to understand that emotional baggage could be dangerous if it wasn’t dealt with safely, and that unspoken issues between team-members had more than once led to bloodshed and death during the cyber-war. She sat down on the armrest of the chair and bit her lip, trying to ignore the fear she could see in the Doctor’s eyes. 

It was one of the biggest differences between this Doctor and the original. This one was a lot more accessible for her, liked to touch and be touched and was more outspoken with his feelings and memories. They’d talked more about Gallifrey and Time Lords in the last six months than she’d done with the original Doctor in two years! But the openness hadn’t come without a price. This Doctor was unbelievably insecure about Rose and his place in her life. One would think that he’d by now understood that she wouldn’t leave him without very, very good reasons, but he seemed to think that his world would end whenever they had a fight. He tried to act like it wasn’t so, but she could see the panic in his eyes whenever she was keeping her distance because her mood was still too raw, or because she just needed some quiet-time to be alone with her thoughts. 

It made it bloody hard to fight with him. She couldn’t even properly ignore him without feeling like a total twat. Sometimes, it magnified her anger even more but she couldn’t help it and she knew the Doctor wasn’t doing it on purpose. He simply couldn’t help it and he was bound to her in a way the original Doctor would never have been. 

In this relationship, Rose held all the power. And paradoxically, it made her feel weak and scared whenever she let herself realize it. 

Swallowing, she swiped a strand of hair out of her face, then looked up. “I am interested. That’s not the question, is it? You know I am. But… I think we should have a proper talk before we do anything. So…how about a cuppa and we do it like the professionals. This” she gestured between them with her hand “is not the Doctor and his companion Rose Tyler anymore. This is you and me, being a team of time-travelling vortex-hoppers, right? So let’s do it like a real team and write down rules.” She couldn’t suppress her smile when she saw his happy expression and Rose would have had to be a very cold-hearted person to hold back her own grin to his beaming smile. 

“Oh yes! A team. Time-travelling vortex-hoppers – I love it!” He nearly bounced he was so excited, and now Rose had to giggle. She might have to be the adult in their relationship more than she would have liked, but if she got excited-puppy-Doctor-faces in exchange, she could weather it fine. 

“Good. I’ll make the tea, you take this monstrosity back inside. And bring the book.”

****

Never in his life had the Doctor liked rules. Not as a youngling, not at the Academy, certainly not as an adult. But making rules about how to be a team with Rose was surprisingly fun, and they’d come up with a lot of very good points for future vortex-hopping.

Their list was hand-written by Rose, mostly because her written Earth was much better than his and she couldn’t read Gallifreyan. It read as followed:

• No team-member will hop alone, ever, except for dire circumstances like life-or-death-situations  
• No team-member will abandon the other, ever. (why that had to be written down, he truly didn’t know but Rose had insisted. Fine)  
• New destinations will always be discussed before and approved by all team-members   
• Disagreements will be sorted before travelling – no hopping while mad!  
• New additions to the team have to be unanimously approved. No tag-alongs!  
• If there are changes in the way things have to be operated, every team-member will have to be informed at the earliest possible moment – preferably before hopping  
• Never touch a fixed point in time!  
• Until further notice, only hops into the past are allowed.  
• If new features have to be tested, all team-members have to be informed before any testing will be done  
• Failure to adhere to this list will be punishable by a one-months travel-ban for all team-members, no matter who committed the offence

There were more blank spaces on the page, so the list could be expanded on. They’d agreed on most of the items on it, though he had tried to keep the punishment to just one week. Rose had insisted that it would have to be actually painful to work and he’d had to concede her point. 

Now, with the list tagged on the mirror in their bedroom where no nosy visitor would dare stick their nose in, they lay on the couch together with Rose between his legs leaning against him and holding the heavy tome of history on her chest so both of them could look inside. They’d already dismissed anything with non-English language as a destination since without the Tardis, Rose would be in severe disadvantage. Luckily, this still left enough places to travel and they’d been browsing through Canada’s past for the last twenty minutes. 

“Why can’t we go to present-time Canada? I’d love to see it, and it’s so much cheaper than using a Zep.”

“Because, as you know, the moment we go to present-time Anywhere, we’re not _here_ anymore. If we come back here, to the exact same point in time we left, wherever we’ve been will be the future from then on, and travelling into the future isn’t allowed as per our list.” It would also be too dangerous and too easy to accidentally change something immense. 

Rose pouted but nodded in agreement. “Fine. Isn’t there something exciting in New York?” 

He grinned and played with a strand of her hair. “Oh, yes. 15th to 18th of August 1969, there’s this amazing music-festival in Bethel, state of New York.” She didn’t turn around, just slapped him with a backwards hand-gesture right on the ear. “Ouch!”

“You deserve it. If I promise we’ll go to Woodstock on another trip, will you let it rest?”

“Oh, fine,” he pouted but he didn’t put much effort in it. Wherever they agreed on would be fantastic anyway, and Woodstock wouldn’t run away. It was firmly locked and safe in the past. “How about seeing the debut performance of ‘Hamlet’? Or well, we could try to find it, since it’s still debated if it actually aired 1607 in the Globe…” He stopped. “What?”

“Really? Shakespeare? I mean, I guess he was alright, but can’t we do something less… artsy?”

Appalled, he tried to say something but nothing would come out of his mouth. After the third attempt, he shut it with an audible _klick_ and simply shook his head over Rose’s dismission of one of the greatest theatre-writers of all times in all the universe as ‘alright’. “I despair of you, Rose Tyler,” he said eventually. “I truly despair. Maybe I should take your mother – she’d be interested in some more ‘artsy’ endeavours.”

Rose snorted. “Feel free, I won’t stop you.” She laughed when he shuddered and turned a page in the book. “But really – I don’t mind Shakespeare or theatre or music. Just… not right now. I would like to do something… hm. Flashy. Oh, I know – can we go look for Robin Hood?” She bent her neck and turned her head so she could look at him with her head still resting on his chest. There was that most fantastic smile she wore sometimes, the one with her tongue against her teeth that would always make him tingle inside, had always made him tingle even when he’d been just one person. It was the smile he very rarely could resist. Oh, who was he kidding – so far, he had never resisted it. 

“Robin Hood is a legend. There’s no proof he existed and not even agreement on the time he would have existed if he had existed. Flashy, huh? What do you consider flashy? Christopher Street Day in New York? We can pick one of the flashier ones or go to the first ever – though that’s more political and not as colourful, it’s certainly the more interesting one from a historical point of view.” 

Rose chewed on her thumb in thought and he reached over to stop her, as per her request from last week. She was trying to quit the gnawing. In retaliation, she bit his thumb and grinned around it, and he didn’t quite know if shifting a bit would make it more or less obvious what sort of effect it had on him. Her giggles made him suspect she already knew anyway. “While that sounds like fun, I was thinking more of… pirates?”

“… Pirates?”

“Yes. I’m in a pirate-mood right now. You know, sword-fights and cannons and treasure and all that.”

“You mean rotting teeth, scurvy, cut-off limbs?”

“No, I mean big hats and flags and big, beautiful ships!”

“Violence and thievery and plunder?”

She nudged him with her elbow. “I just want to see it. I know what it’s probably like, I can read, you know? But… there’s always this romantic thing in my head that makes it all so exciting. I want to see for myself which is true.”

“And,” she added, like an afterthought, “I already know you can sword-fight, so you are allowed to protect me, my dear Doctor.”

Now it was his turn to grin. “Well, I’m not too shabby with a sword… But aye, let’s see if we can find some English-speaking pirate-haven and have a look, why don’t we.”

“Oh!” Rose sat up and squished some of his parts in rather uncomfortable ways. “Wasn’t there this woman-pirate? Aaah, I know her name...” She snapped her fingers impatiently, trying to get her thoughts and memories in gear. “Can’t put my finger on it, urgh!”

“There were many female pirates, or … well, more than most people think. Well… in the other universe, there were. Don’t really know about here, but we can look it up. Mostly in Asia, but also some in and around Britain. Let’s see… I recall Gráinne Ní Mháille in Ireland, or maybe Lady Killigrew? Actually, there were two Lady Killigrews and-“

“Anne Bonny!” Rose interrupted. “That’s who I mean. Anne Bonny.” 

“Ah– Caribbean pirates. Could have mentioned that,” he reproached mockingly. “Then again, you did say last week that you wanted to go to a beach …”

“Oh, can we go, please?” Rose clapped her hands and begged, actually _begged_ with her biggest, nicest smile and the blinking and the pleading eyes… How could he say no? 

Rolling his eyes, he gave in. “Oh, fine. We’ll go to the Caribbean, 18th century, at the Golden Age of Piracy! But only under one condition,” he warned. Rose nodded, eagerly. “You don’t run off with Captain Jack S… oh my god I only just noticed!” 

Rose cackled in delight. “Really? Only just now? You are so slow sometimes, Doctor. So, so slow.” 

Silently, he agreed. How had he missed that? Probably the physical differences had thrown him off, that must have been it. Jack Harkness didn’t quite have the right swagger to be instantly paired with Jack Sparrow – and was a lot less sloshed. “Either way,” he cut into her giggles, smiling because it felt so fantastic to laugh with Rose. “Either way, you don’t run off with any kind of Captain Jack. Or any non-Captain Jack. Nor any Captains not named Jack. Understood?” He kissed her, quick and sweet but she grabbed his head and deepened it until they were both left breathless.

“Understood, mon Capitan. There will be no running off without you.” 

“Fantastic. So – let’s go find something appropriate to wear.” He waggled his eyebrows and Rose squealed in delight. She was so reserved these days, so grown-up and mature. It was a delightful gift to have her be free and happy like she used to be, even though he did appreciate her competence and newfound assertiveness. But he found it difficult to be mature and competent himself – well, no, he was very competent., just not very mature – so she often took the role of protector and adult in their relationship outside their own walls. He didn’t like tethering her spirits down, remembering her own childishness with fondness, yet whenever he tried to be earnest, he got quickly bored or distracted. Mostly, one followed the other. Having the competent agent Tyler turn back into giggling Rose at the weekends was something he’d been secretly dreaming of when he’d finally presented her the functioning vortex-hopper. _Of course she wouldn’t have stayed happy with visiting every conceivable music-event in the last decades_ , he chided himself. This was Rose he was living with, not … someone else. 

While she went to see which parts of their wardrobe could be worn without too many questions in the 18th century at a pirate-infested colony, he picked up the history book to see how much – or if anything at all – was known about Anne Bonny in this universe. He smiled. This could be really fun, he thought. Maybe even as much fun as Woodstock.


	3. Chapter 3

The bed was covered in clothes. Rose hadn’t even known she had so many clothes, wouldn’t have dreamed of the Doctor having so many clothes. Well – the punny t-shirts hadn’t come as a big surprise, but he also had a lot of trousers and blazers and an incredible number of shoes. Maybe there was a bit of Donna in his fashion-sense, she wondered, welcoming the thought. She would have gone to the end of the world for the Doctor, but she wasn’t too sad that his hand-created – she giggled to herself – offspring was more open to changes of wardrobe. 

Sadly, in all the colourful piles, there were only few options that wouldn’t raise eyes in the 18th century, and those were not meant for the Caribbean climate. 

_Oh my God, I’m going to the Caribbean!_ She bounced up and down in excitement. White beaches, turquoise sea and a bustling, loud, colourful city… this was a secret dream come true. Quickly, she went to her dresser and tossed out her collection of scarves to see if some of them would fit either her or the Doctor. 

“Rose? Any luck?” He came through the door and stared at the pile with wide eyes. “Wow. Is that all… ours?”

She snickered. “I distinctly remember the wardrobe-room in the Tardis, so don’t even try, Mister,” she waggled her finger and grinned. “Sadly, even all this isn’t really fitting. I could maybe take on of the dresses…”

“Oh, actually,” he scratched his head and went to pick up and stare dubiously at one of her blouses with checkered sleeves and plain white chest, “I came to suggest you should wear men’s clothes. See, it wasn’t uncommon, the books said, and it would give you more freedom and less… uhm. Groping.”

She hadn’t thought of that, but it made a lot of sense. “Well… I’m sorry to say that we don’t have the right things to wear. You could probably wear those trousers,” she pointed at his present attire, “but while you have loads of shoes, none of them are appropriate for pirating. And I can’t wear jeans now, can I?”

Grimacing, he stared at her. “You want to go shopping, am I right?” 

“Actually… no. I want to go to my parents and raid their attic. Pete has tons of clothes from other-Jackie and his parents up there, we’ll find something to wear, I’m sure. We would need boots, though, so a bit of shopping is still in the books,” she grinned, “so tomorrow we’ll hit the shops and then we’re off to mum and Pete’s. We can have lunch with them, if you want to,” she grinned impishly, knowing he’d rather not. Lunch meant Tony, and Tony and the Doctor had still not really found themselves on the same wavelength. Tony, cute as he could be now and then, was easily distracted, not at all interested in talking – and neither in listening – and had on many occasions called the Doctor ‘boring’. In reverse, while he had tried to have fun with Tony in the beginning, the Doctor had found him to be whiny, spoiled and snappish. It wasn’t entirely wrong, but the boy was five and didn’t understand half of what the Doctor rambled, and he wasn’t allowed to touch any of the more interesting things he’d found in their apartment the few times her mom had made them Tony-sit. Only their choice of movies was somehow similar, but after Jackie had told him off about it, the Doctor wasn’t allowed to show Tony any but the first Harry Copper movies. 

Of course the kid would think the Doctor boring and silly. 

“Aww, do we have to?”

And just because he made such a disgruntled face, Rose nodded. She hadn’t actually wanted to, but she hadn’t been home for a while now. Too much work, and too much music-hopping, she supposed. “Yes. But I promise, only lunch. And the attic.”

The Doctor groaned but then picked up one of her red scarves. “Oh, this is nice. Do you think it would suit me as a belt? See, most pirates wore lengths of rope as a belt, but I’m not sure we have any and buying one would probably be too – but we could use it later, except I’d have to cut it to size… ” 

She decided to keep the large, broad leather-belt with the big brass-buckle for herself. He could keep the scarf.

****

Their hunt for suitable boots had turned out mildly successful. The shoe-shops hadn’t given them what they wanted or needed but Rose had dragged them into a second-hand store where she found the right kind for her and he’d just picked a pair of completely-black converse, deciding that chances where low that anyone in Nassau would recognize them or even be able to read the brand-name.

Rose had gone for an old, worn-in pair of calf-high once-beige leather boots without any Velcro, buckles or laces. They looked fantastic on her, especially now that she wore a pair of Jackie Tyler’s culottes with the legs tucked into the boots so they billowed out around her calves. She had found a black wide blouse without buttons, held together with some complicated string-ensemble and nicely accentuated with a wide leather-belt, and put one of Pete’s old, now too narrow beige vests on top. She looked absolutely delicious, and as she twirled around in front of the mirror, he felt his salivary glands go into overdrive. 

“What do you say, Doctor?”

“Fine,” he squeaked, then cleared his throat to sound a little less absurd. “You look stunning.” 

She giggled happily, beaming at him. There was absolutely nothing better in this world – or the other – than Rose’s happy beaming smile. Absolutely nothing. “You don’t look half-daft, either, mon Capitan.” She sashayed over to him, running her hands over his fluffing, wide, grey-blue shirt down to where it was tucked into his black cotton-trousers. Her hands swept under the red scarf-belt he wore to cover the fact that he hadn’t been able to find anything without a zip. That, and because it looked fantastic on his hips, especially with the loose ends flapping around when he whirled. It was nearly as good as his long coat had been, in case he would want to make a grand entrance somewhere. “I couldn’t find hats, though,” Rose murmured as she ran her hands through his hair, lingering on the white strands for a bit until she kissed him. 

“Dn’t mttr”, he answered, then hissed as she bit his lip gently to let him know that she didn’t appreciate him talking while being kissed. He understood and went with the program. 

When they came up for air, he had forgotten what they’d been talking about but before he could go and try to find his question on her lips again, there was a discreet – not really – cough from the door. “Don’t mind me, folks, but lunch is ready and Jackie has been calling you for ten minutes now.” Pete grinned. “You two look like you’re going to be the talk of the party. Mind telling me who has a costume-party in August?” 

“Donna!” Rose answered quickly, then tugged him along by his scarf. “Come, let’s not keep Mom waiting longer than necessary.”

He grabbed the two scarves he’d found as headgear before following, hoping the food wouldn’t be too opulent and Tony would not be annoying today.

****

“Why are you dressed funny?”, Tony asked for probably the third time. Rose could hear the Doctor’s gritted teeth as he forced a smile, which didn’t look like much of one anyway. She wondered why he bothered. Her brother certainly didn’t care if he smiled.

Before he could grit out something mildly rude, Pete jumped in. “They’re going to a party, Tiger. Everyone dresses up for this one.” He ruffled the strawberry-blond mop on top of Tony’s head, laughing when Tony growled at him.

“Not a tiger! Told you, I’m a lion! I’m Simba, king of the jungle!”

She felt the Doctor shift and inhale at her side and managed to kick him before he could once more launch into the fact that lions didn’t live in jungles, rather in savannas, and that Disney despite its genius and entertainment-values was not, in fact, an accurate source for researching wild animals. She had heard it once today, and Tony had been suitably unimpressed. 

“Also,” her brother continued, “what dumb person has a dress-up-party in summer? Aren’t they s’posed to be in winter or sumthin’?”

This time, Rose wasn’t quick enough. “First of all – Donna is not dumb and secondly, you are being rude.” He smirked at finally getting to say that to someone else. She had to bite the inside of her cheek to supress her own smile. “Secondly – no, thirdly – there is no rule when dress-up parties are appropriate and when not, so you could dress up whenever you like. As I might point out, _you_ are currently dressed up in a lion’s costume. Am I calling you ‘dumb’ for it?”

Tony stared, open-mouthed at the Doctor, then quickly cast a glance to their mom. Since she agreed with the Doctor in this particular case, she only just raised her eyebrows and nodded, so Tony scrunched up his nose and pouted, with his arms crossed in front of his chest. “You’re all stupid. This all is dumb. Not hungry anymore.”

“Tony,” Pete interjected before anyone else could comment, “I will not have you talk like that to anyone, least of all your family. Is that understood?”

“…. …. Amly” Tony muttered. 

“Come again?” Now her dad was truly cross. “Can you repeat that, please?”

Tony glared, and Rose wished she’d listened to the Doctor and skipped family-lunch today. Maybe skipped it until Tony had outgrown this annoying phase. If he ever would. 

“I said,” he stated clearly now, “that _he_ is not family!” It wasn’t necessary to point at the Doctor, but the little twat did it anyway. And there were quite a lot of things Rose would let pass because he was usually a cute kid, was a _kid_ and growing up sort of in the madness that was Vitex-heirdom and being in the public eye was maddening to adults and would surely confuse a five-year-old, but being outspokenly unkind to the Doctor was uncalled for and not to be tolerated. Before anyone else could react – and she knew Pete as well as her mom would have a lot to say about it – she stood. “Oh, well, in that case you aren’t my family, either. Have a nice day, _Tony Tyler_ , I’ll be off. See you… sometime.” 

And she grabbed the Doctor’s hand to pull him along and stalked out of the room, too angry to stay and listen to whatever her parents would have to say. She might say something else that she’d regret, considering that the little shit was her brother and only five and not completely responsible for his words. 

“Well, that was fun, let’s do it again sometime!” the Doctor grinned, forcefully chipper once they were out of hearing-distance. “How about in 2016, maybe? We can pencil it in, don’t you think?”

“Oh, shut up,” she growled but had to chuckle. “’s not like you’re completely innocent in your silly little feud.”

He stopped and opened his mouth, forcing an innocent look on his face. “Who, me?” He pointed to his chest. “I’ll let you know, I never have feuds. With nobody, ever. No-where in the universe will you hear someone say ‘Oh, the Doctor has a feud with them’ because I don’t feud. I’m a non-feudal person. Wait… no, that’s the wrong word. Anyway, no feud. And certainly not with five-year-old brothers-in-law.” 

Rose could only blink. It took three blinks for him to catch up with his own words. “Uh, well, not that we… he and I… Well.” As he did whenever he was embarrassed or unsure, he scratched his neck and swiped his hand through his hair. “I mean, we’re not, you and me… I’m just saying…”

Quickly, she put her finger on his lips. “Shhh. Don’t ruin it. Just let it be out there in the wind and see where it will take us, alright?” She smiled and he smiled back at her, the softness around his eyes that she loved so much appearing and deepening as his smile grew even warmer. He put his hand to her face and kissed her, sweet and lovely and if she concentrated, she could taste a promise on his lips. She’d get back to it later; Rose knew it wouldn’t go away anytime soon. 

“I love you, Rose Tyler. Even with your annoying brother.”

“I’m really glad you love me despite my annoying brother,” she smirked. “So, how about Barbados?”

He leaned back slightly, looking surprised. “Barbados? I don’t know where you’re going, but I’ll be visiting the Bahamas today! I had hoped you’d accompany me, lovely pirate-lady?” When he held out his arm, Rose easily slipped hers into it.

“Ay ay, mon Capitan,” she laughed, pulling him along. “I’ll go wherever you go. Any last-minute-preparations?”

He grinned, big and happy and beaming. “No, just get your hair into a ponytail and put this,” he handed her a headband “on, and then we’re off to get the vortex-hopper.”

“I can’t wait!” Rose couldn’t quite abstain from hopping at his side. “Lead on, Macduff!”

“Oh, actually, that’s a misquote. It’s from Shakespeare, of course…” He kept going on, probably some fascinating insight she would otherwise have liked to hear. But Rose wasn’t listening anymore, too giddy to care about stuffy, boring Shakespeare right now. They were going to see _pirates_!

While they could have gone home and jumped from there, they decided waiting was boring and got to the car and collected the vortex-manipulator, which the Doctor put on his wrist. “We’re going to Nassau, the Republic of Pirates, early 18th century!” he explained while putting coordinates and date into the wrist-computer. The vortex-hopper was more accurate than the Tardis, as it brought them where they wanted to go, but Rose wouldn’t admit that to the Doctor out loud. It had other drawbacks, like the sort of queasy feeling it left her with after each jump and she missed the slight mystery of where their voyage would bring them this time. She’d rather liked the surprise-destinations. 

When he was finished with the input, he looked back at her. “I can’t promise we’ll meet your hero, sorry, but there’s no record of where she was when exactly. The only fixed point I have after she became a pirate is when she was captured and sentenced to death, but I was rather thinking you wanted to meet her alive?” he winked. “Now, most of the Pirates speak English and it’s the most rule-abiding time there is in pirate history, but still – do me a favour?”

“Don’t wander off?”

He beamed. “Exactly. Now – off to New Providence!” 

“Wait – Providence? I thought we’re going to the Caribbean?”

“Well.” He waggled his head. “It’s an island in the Bahamas. It’s packed to the gunnels with pirates. Close enough, don’t you agree?” When she frowned at him, he explained: “It’s also the place you’re most likely to meet Anne Bonny or Jack Rackham. Which is another Captain Jack you are not allowed to run off with” he cautioned and she barely supressed her giggle. 

“Fine. Allons-y?”

“Oh yes – Allons-y!”

****

Simba, future king of Everything The Light Touches, was learning to sneak. After being told off for being unkingly by his mother and his father, King Mufasa – who was not going to die in a canyon trampled by wildebeest because To-…- uh, Simba was going to rescue him and be made king in thanks to that! – he had decided to practice his future-king-skills by learning to hunt better. He’d already stalked one of the zebras who worked in the gardens but been chased away when they spotted him clawing the lawnmower – uh… big tortoise! Big, noisy tortoise. Now, he was in the front yard where the big loud rhinoceros-cars lived, and he had just decided to stalk one of them and jump on it – maybe the big red one? – to tear it down and eat it, when he spotted something more interesting. One of the lionesses – who was certainly _not_ his sister! – was standing beside the loud, fluttery, always talking about boring things … birdy-thing called Doctor Zazou. Future-king Simba was certain he could sneak at them, show them how great he was and finally be taken along to the hunt after.

Slowly, silently, he lowered his body to the ground and took step after very, very careful step. He didn’t make any sound and he would get Zazou this time, would sneak up on him and surprise him and the lioness. Her name was…Rosie! He’d be a hero!

Carefully, he hid behind one of the low walls that surrounded the garden of his home – no, no, the _low row of desert-bushes_ which would hide him further, and he got on his hands and knees – except of course lions don’t walk on their knees – and then he was just right beside them but hidden from view, just next to them, a perfect spot to start his attack!

He heard first Rosie and then Zazou call for someone named ‘Allonzo’ and with a loud roar he jumped up and grabbed Zazou, who squeaked and then there was something _yanking_ and _lurching_ and he felt really sick in the tummy and then he was in a big, busy place and someone jostled him from behind and he was so confused and he turned and there was the red scarf, the one Zazou had worn, walking away from him and he followed it but when he grabbed it, it wasn’t Zazou but some hairy, smelly … thing! Simba yelped and backed away and then Tony started to run.

This wasn’t fun anymore, and he really wanted his mommy.


	4. Chapter 4

“No, Tony!” he yelled but it was already too late. He hadn’t noticed the kid sneak up on them until he’d grabbed his arm, and by some explicitly bad chance, it had been right exactly as he’d pressed the button on the vortex-hopper. There had been no time, not even a miniscule chance for him to stop the jump and the only thing he’d been able to do was grab the kid’s hand so he wouldn’t get lost in the vortex. 

But the second they’d materialized, they’d been bumped into by a group of rowdily drunken sailors on their way to somewhere, and he’d lost his grip on the boy’s jacket and before he even had all his wits together, Tony was swept away into the bustling market-centre of Nassau, at this time known as the Pirate Republic. 

Quick as he could, he grabbed Rose by the hand and dragged her along, following the group that had jostled them. He called for the boy but there were so many names yelled, so many things screamed that he could barely hear his own voice. He found a pole in front of a building, yelled at Rose to _Stay and don’t bloody move!_ and jumped up it, hoping to see the child from higher up.

Rose, thank the stars, stayed at the pole but she hadn’t caught on yet what had happened. Good, probably. “What? What about Tony? Doctor!” 

The streets were full with people and carts and horses and things, everything was fluttery and colourful and indeed very flashy, but there was no little boy to be seen. Nothing. 

He gulped in dread and put his hands up his face, except that was a bad idea because he’d been clinging to the pole with their help. While he did have fantastic climbing-legs, he still slid down and then fell when his heels hit a knobby bit and with a yelp, he found himself on the ground with Rose staring at him with trepidation and a hint of anger. 

“Have you gone daft? What is your problem, Doctor?”

His tongue stuck to his gums because all moisture had left his mouth. Where it had gone, he didn’t know because this body did things like that without warning or explanation. “Tony,” he was able to croak, then cleared his throat to speak a little better. “He grabbed me right when we jumped. He’s here.”

“… What? Please – again, but slower. Did I get this right – my little _five year old_ brother is here, in … Tortuga or whatnot? You brought my _brother_ with us?”

“No!” he shouted, still on the ground because if he was already as low as possible, Rose wouldn’t punch him or do something similar. She would never kick a man on the ground. Right? “No, no, it’s not my fault! I swear, I would never take a kid with me, and you know I’d never take _Tony_! He… I don’t know what happened! He was suddenly there and grabbed my arm, and he came along and then when we were here someone bumped into him and…” he stopped, trying to find a good way to say ‘now he’s lost’. There wasn’t any, he found. 

Rose blinked. Then blinked some more. Then he saw her eyes widen and he knew, just knew she’d run off to look for the boy and he grabbed her ankle before she could. “Let go!” She yelled and wriggled. “Let go, that’s my brother! We have to find him, he’s just five, he’s just a kid and mom is going to _kill_ you for this!”

While a part of his brain was saying how unfair it was that Jackie would kill _him_ when it was clearly not his fault, the other part shushed it. That other part was smart, honed with fantastic survival-instincts, sadly not utilized very often in the life of a time-travelling Time Lord who had a little bit of a fatalistic streak. The smart part was right, though, because Jackie Tyler would not kill her own daughter for this, so he would be her target and he would not survive it. Maybe he could just stay here?

He swallowed hard but kept his grip nonetheless. “Rose, wait, wait. _Rose_! We’ll find him, I promise. We won’t leave here until we do, if we have to steal a ship to do it, we will. But Rose. Rose!” She stopped struggling and stared at him, then sagged and sat down beside him on the disgusting, muddy street. “Rose, we need to do this smartly. We can’t just rush along and shout for him – there’s bound to be thousands of Tony’s here. We’ll go search the square first, then go out … I don’t know this, Rose. This is your expertise. How do you search for missing persons – or aliens, which isn’t that different here. Rose?” 

Of course he knew how to do a proper search. He’d searched for a lot of people in a lot of years – a real lot of years. But Rose was coming undone in front of him, and she needed to focus. “Right,” she said, shaking herself. “Right. We… uh, usually we’d do a grid-pattern. But we’re only two people. So… we’ll… We… we do a spiral search, go out from where we lost him and widen the circle so we can cover this area. After that… I don’t know. Uhm…” she thought, biting her nail again. He didn’t stop her this time. There was very little chance he’d be able to grow a new hand. “Right. We’ll do this first, ask as many pirates as possible, ask as many _people_ as possible and then go and …. We might have to split up,” she said, realization what that might mean in her eyes. 

He nodded. “I know. If we do, before we do anything else, we’ll establish a meeting-point and a time so we don’t get lost. Uh…” he looked around but from his position, he couldn’t see much. Rose stood and pulled him up, and together they took in the town called Nassau.

“Well. This certainly doesn’t look like it does in the movies,” Rose muttered. And while he didn’t quite know which movies Rose had seen, no-one with a movie-budget would bother creating something like this for the screen. It did, however, look quite a lot like he had suspected it would look like. Dirt-roads, some of them overgrown with bushes and other greenery were lined with huts and hovels of various sizes, some bigger wooden structures – you could probably call them ‘buildings’ if you were being kind – which seemed mostly to be drinking-establishments or other houses of commerce, some posts with flags on them here and there and, further in the distance, the ruins of a once-big fort. It all converged into a surprisingly large town which was certainly big enough to lose a small boy from the 21st century in. 

“Let’s see – do you still have that watch?” He’d given her a small and sturdy pocket-watch which wouldn’t look too modern for most settings they would find themselves in before they’d started time-hopping. He carried one as well, but with his luck it would probably get crushed or stolen within seconds. Good thing the hopper had an internal clock and was really, really-really hard to break. “Fine. So – it’s now five to five. If we get separated, we’ll meet at the fort over there. It’s easy to find and anyone would know it. What time, though… we don’t know at what time we’ll be separated…”

Rose interrupted his rushing thoughts. “Let’s just say on the hour. Whenever it happens – if it happens,” she smiled a bitter, fake smile “we just meet there at the next full hour. But let’s first try not to get lost, okay?” He could see her biting her lip and a rush of affection curled through him. He pulled her into a hug. 

“We’ll find him. He’ll be fine. There are many children here – we’ll be able to grab him and take him home and nobody will even know he was gone. Well – he might, but maybe nobody will believe him.” He didn’t really think so, but one could hope, right? “So now. Let’s go find your annoying little brother, okay?” He kissed her forehead and then bent down to scoop up some mud. With quick motions, he smeared it into his mouth and over his teeth. The squishy dirt tasted disgusting but would do the trick. 

“What… have you gone mad now? Completely?”

“Our teeth are too shiny. You should do this as well; we’ll be less obviously strangers that way. They might also try to steal them.” 

With wide eyes, Rose did as he suggested, sputtering and spitting. “If you were taking the piss at me, you will not see the bedroom for weeks, just to be clear.”

He raised his hands in defence. “I would never! I like your teeth shiny, I’d never suggest it if it weren’t a good idea.”

It didn’t look like she believed him, not quite, but they just started back towards their point of arrival and began working the crowds.

****

After the thirtieth or something drunken pirate who had neither seen nor heard of a little boy wearing a lion’s costume, Rose couldn’t keep the worry at bay anymore. They had to find Tony, they just had to. Not just because her mom would kill them if they didn’t but also because as annoying as he was, he didn’t deserve to be alone in a completely strange world with dirty, smelly, sloshed pirates. The few women they’d met were clearly from the horizontal line of commerce or had other things to sell. Most of them looked worn-down and gritty, some of them were obviously sick, and most of them had really awful teeth.

She kept her mouth closed and didn’t smile – not that there was much reason for it anyway – and was quite glad their clothes had been dirtied up by the first minutes of frantic, plan-less searching after their arrival. Her trousers were already muddy and her boots caked in something indescribable and the Doctor didn’t look much better. They’d searched the immediate area now and luckily only three roads emerged from the town square, all three no more than dirt-paths really. One was covered in mud, the other two were leading uphill so they seemed to be a bit drier. 

The Doctor could take the muddy one, she decided. She’d slip-slided enough already in her stupid boots. Where the _hell_ could her brother have gotten to? He was five, any normal kid would just find a place and cry their eyes out until someone picked them up.

Oh skies above – had someone picked him up? Rose felt her heart flutter and pump harder and her breath was coming out short and stuttery. A warm hand fell onto her back. “Calm down,” he said into her ear, “he’ll be fine. It’s not likely someone would have done something to him – he’s far too young to be put to work somewhere.” Rose’s left eyelid started to twitch, a tick that told her she was on her last leg now. 

“That’s not bloody helpful, _Doctor_! Let’s split up, I’ll go up there,” she pointed to one of the higher roads “and you take that one. One hour and then we’ll meet here, and if we haven’t found him by then … I don’t know what I’ll do but it will not be pretty!” 

She turned on her heel and stalked off, irritated by the Doctor’s calm and her own irritation. She knew it was more likely to find anyone if you kept calm and level-headed, but she wasn’t a bloody Time Lord who lost people all over and had experience! There was only her family for her, and she wouldn’t lose even one of them, and certainly not in 18th century Nassau!

Walking up the gentle slope the town was built on, Rose looked at each person, each house or hut or tent intensely. If before, on the square, she’d been asking for help, now she was suspicious of everyone she encountered. What if that harrowed looking woman had snatched Tony to have him sweep her floors? What if that pirate there had taken him because he was too drunk to see it wasn’t his own son? What if that other pirate there had taken her brother to work on his pirate-ship? 

After only about twenty minutes, she was panting from the sheer terror of possibilities. There was just too much that could happen to a little boy in a pirate-town and her brain felt like it was boiling. Rose stopped and leaned against one of those poles, trying to calm her breath and smooth her erratic heartbeat. The Doctor had been right – she couldn’t keep being like this and be successful. She needed a clear head and all her wits, and so she exhaled slowly, inhaled slowly, exhaled once more. The air smelled – and tasted – quite disgusting, rank and sweet and too warm for her British nature. It was clear that modern sewer-systems hadn’t been a priority for the founders of this town, if indeed it had already been invented at all? She wasn’t quite as up-to-date on her history as the Doctor. Rose really didn’t want to know what kind of things she’d stepped in by now. 

“Ay, mate, how ‘bout ya move ya skinny bones from me house now, haw ‘bout that?” a voice snarled from behind her. She turned, finding a stocky, balding man with a fantastic beard and worn, slightly muddied clothes standing in the – well, ‘door’, she supposed, of the hut. 

“Oh, sorry. Mate,” Rose replied, remembering at the last moment not to stare because in this place, _his_ attire was certainly not unusual. “Just needed a breather for a mo. Be gone in a sec.”

“Well, see that ya do. Me girls’n us, we don’ like people stinkin’ up awr entrance, mind.” He swept his big, meaty paw over the skin on top of his head and then frowned. “xcept of course, mate, if yaw wanta have a look at them goods in here?” He invited her into his hut, and suddenly Rose understood what she’d been leaning in front of. On top of the hut’s door was a sign that she’d taken as a family-name, but now that she looked closer, she realized it was a symbol that, if you were either very good at deciphering pictograms or properly desperate, pictured two bodies interlocked. One of them had rather large boobs. If those things were supposed to be boobs – Rose wasn’t sure it was anatomically possible to have them in such a size. 

“Ah – no, thank you, mate. Another day, maybe.” Moving to cover her blush – a pirate, like she was supposed to be now, would presumably not blush at the idea of a whorehouse. “Bit short on coins right now,” she added and straightened, then left the flagpole to go back into the fray. Right before she was too far away, she turned because why not. “Ah – don’t mind me askin’, but have you seen a boy, five years, about ye high with reddish hair and a rather strange … attire?”

The man frowned then straightened. “Now, you listen, laddie. Dunno where ‘s it you from, but over here we don’t do nothin’ of that sort. Better go piss off ‘til the gov’ner finds ya with them notions, or sommone else might stick a shank into ya!”

“Oh – no, not… I… He’s my brother! Just my brother, said I’ll …” she stopped because how likely would it be for a pirate to be told to mind their five-year old brother? “Sorry.”

She heard the whorehouse’s owner spit on the floor, and in a way, it was a relief to hear his reaction. On the other hand, it did not bode well to come with that sort of reputation – if he were to tell people about his assumptions, it might become even harder to find Tony. God, she could only hope he was okay!

****

The path down towards the harbour was muddy and slippery. He wasn’t the only one to fall onto his backside more than once; at least every second man or woman he met and asked about Tony had similarly stained clothes. It was rather uncomfortable but in the great scheme of things, not actually noteworthy.

Except of course all the slipping made it hard to stay dignified to ask questions. Considering most men he talked to were drunk or on their way to being, it probably didn’t matter at all, though. Sadly, no-one had seen Tony. One man said he’d done so and pointed him towards a shabby tent, but the boy he found there was neither the right age nor had he the right colour of hair and to top it off, his mother got really shirty with him for barging into her home. 

After apologizing and fleeing in the most dignified manner possible while having old cabbage thrown at him, he straightened outside the tent and tried to formulate a plan. A better one than asking every person he met. 

“If I were five years old, what would I do in a place I don’t know?” he murmured and thought. Quickly, though, he realized that his own childhood wouldn’t be a good example if he wanted to get into the mind of a human. He’d have probably constructed a map and explored the whole place until someone picked him up. Hopefully, Tony wouldn’t do that – it would make it very hard to find him. 

Picking off the last piece of mouldy cabbage from his shoulder, he wrinkled his nose at the smell of this town. He’d tried to warn Rose about mixing reality with movie-fiction, but even though he’d suspected something like this, the smell was really unpleasant. Mixed in with the odour of people – sweat, faeces, vomit and food – there was a tang of … something in the air. He couldn’t quite place it, but it was remarkable enough to get his mind to notice it. Danger? Hm. Unsure, he tried to pick it up better, but on this road the smells of humanity were too dominant. After running around with his nose in the air – apparently not strange enough in this place to be of interest to anyone – he forced himself to stop. He wasn’t here to search for weird smells, he was here to find Tony! 

And then he would make sure nothing like this would ever happen again. He would put a lock into the vortex-hopper that prevented accidental tag-alongs in the future, maybe if he spliced a passenger-limit with – no. _’Not now,’_ he chastised himself. Later; now he had to find Rose’s brother and then find Rose and preferably before the big, violently-purple cloud far in the distance over the ocean would reach them. 

Oh. Oh! Ozone. That had been the tang in the air. Good to know. Apparently, it was hurricane-season on the Bahamas. Great time to lose a little boy. 

With a quick glance at the timer on the manipulator – still thirty minutes until he was due back to meet Rose – he hurried down towards the harbour. Maybe Tony had gotten curious about the ships? It seemed to be something the boy would like.

****

The ships were marvellous. He wondered why Rose, who had been the one who wanted to see pirates and pirate-ships, hadn’t taken the road which led to the harbour instead of going uphill, but it was a fleeting thought while he took in the sight. Most of the vessels were sloops, small and agile and quick. But there were a few frigates and back in the distance, what appeared to be a brigantine was moored in one of the bays. There were sails of all colours, flags in all sizes, barrels and oars and many, many men working on the decks and on the harbour, loading goods and supplies and unloading things that needed guarding. Small row-boats were on ferry-duty for the ships further out and salesmen and -women showing off their goods created a kaleidoscope of colour and sound.

It was beautiful. 

He wished desperately to be able to take it all in, with Rose by his side, but no chance. He would have loved to translate the bizarre and explicit curses of the few Spanish or French people, dare her to use one of them at one of the most boring Vitex-functions, but no, he couldn’t. 

A strong-armed young man with hair hanging in long dreads bumped into him and apologized with a big, blindingly-white grin and then whooped in joy as a pretty young girl with skin the colour of milky coffee ran into his arms. A flash of memory hit him, of Martha asking him anxiously about her skin-colour in Shakespeare’s London and he wondered what she’d have made of this small haven of freedom that was the Pirate Republic at a time in which people with dark skin were treated as lowly as dogs, oftentimes lower even. She would have been delighted and sad in similar amounts, he suspected. 

Smiling to himself, he picked a target – a merchant with kind eyes in a rough, bearded face – and approached. “Oi, mate. I’m looking for my boy, small like this,” he indicated his hip, “reddish hair, wearing yellow clothes with a tail at the end.” He stopped, went over his words, then rephrased. “A tail at the end of his trouser-bottoms, that is. Have you seen him?”

“Boy that small? Could be anywhere, really. Many kids about, most are working over there.” He pointed towards an area where sails and fishing-nets were being repaired. 

“Ah, well. Boy’s a bit rubbish at work, really. Just got here from – uh… the mainland, not used to having to work for his living yet. Could be he’s running around crying, now that I think about it.” He scratched his head.

The merchant laughed. “Aye, haven’t we all been there at one point, eh? Haven’t seen crying, useless little lads so far, but go ask Maggy over there, she might’ve. Got a better eye for kids, that one, always getting distracted, always noticing things. ‘s why she sells less but always makes more money, if you catch my drift.” He winked, then yelled at the top of his voice, “Trousers! Boots! Leather-work and repair! Come here, all of ya, get fair prices with Ol’ Macdermet!”

Cringing at the volume, he walked off and went to speak to Maggy, a rotund woman with sharp, shrewd eyes and a knowing smile. When he gave her his spiel, she frowned and scratched her head, more vigorously than strict thinking would induce. He took a step backwards, just in case. Wouldn’t want to infest the modern world with 18th century headlice or worse. “Lad tha’ age? Huh, mabbe saw one a them sniffing ‘round here. Looked a bit clean-faced for to be local, that boy did. Yours, you say?” She gave him a keen once-over. “Don’t look much like a father, lad. Got you even have hair on ye chest?” 

He took a look down his front, not quite sure what his hairiness would have to do with fathering a child. As far as he knew, humans were fertile the moment puberty set in, and he clearly wasn’t pre-pubescent. “Yes, mine,” he nodded. “Bit… uh, new here, too. Out of luck, need some new perspective n life, some new…. Outlook?” She clearly didn’t care, he noticed. Instead, she was picking her nails and inspecting them, as if their cleanliness would have improved any by that action. “So… can you tell me where he went?”

“Could. Dunno if I would, mind ye.” 

He glared. Glared some more. Then sighed. “What do you want for it?”

With a big grin, she looked back at his face. Her teeth were terrible. “Oh, if he is yours, surely ye pay me some pretty price, ey? What’s ‘e worth for ye?”

Hissing a breath, he went through his pockets and assessed his belongings. He’d taken a bag filled with things he could possibly barter, most of them trinkets and cheap jewellery they’d picked up during their shopping-trip. Now, he took something out of one of the bags with the more bling-y stuff and offered it to Maggy. “No, I don’t have more. So take that or leave it; there’s enough people here to ask someone else.”

She snatched the necklace and assessed its worth, looking obviously satisfied. “Nice trading with ye, sailor. Boy was here bit of a few minutes, walked off with one of them girls after she give him a banana. Went that-a-way,” she pointed along the harbour-line. 

“Thank you! Oh – wait. What do you mean with ‘one of them girls’?”

She laughed outright. “One of them girls selling their own, don’t they?” she cackled. “Must know what I’m talking ‘bout, lad like ye?”

Before he could ask for clarification, his brain caught up with the meaning. “Oh – oh! Yes, of course. Uhm… which one? There are certainly… some.”

Maggy cackled again. “One of them cleaner ones, must make quite a penny. Long hair, dark, in a plaid. Nice hips, no limp, clean face. Must really make good money, that-a-one, face like ‘ers. Maybe a new one, never seen ‘er before down here.”

She spotted another pirate nearby and turned her back, clearly dismissing him and their business as done. Great. Now he had to find a prostitute with a clean face and dark, long hair and ‘nice hips’, who went ‘that-a-way’ and see if she had taken Tony with her – hopefully still had him. 

Grimacing, he looked at the timer. He had to get back, meet with Rose. If he went after the mysterious woman, he would miss their meeting and that would be worse than leaving Tony with a strange woman.

He hoped it would be worse, because that’s what he was going to do. If he lost Rose as well as her brother, he could just as well shoot himself in the head.


	5. Chapter 5

When he arrived at their established meeting point, Rose wasn’t anywhere to be seen. Briefly he wondered if he should look for her, but then his belly complained and he let his eyes swipe around, trying to find something edible that would most probably not upset his digestive system. The fish was out, he decided, but maybe some of those interesting fruits? But he didn’t have any coins, and giving away the jewellery just for something to eat was excessive. He would have to sell it first to a vendor, hopefully get a reasonable price. It was mostly tinkery stuff and glass-beads, but they were nicely done in comparison to this century’s beads and baubles, though a professional would surely know that they weren’t real gemstones. Most of them weren’t, at least. While he was standing on his toes to see above all the heads and hats in the street, he spotted a familiar head-scarf beside a mop of reddish curls, coming his way. He hopped up and waved, only after a few raised eyebrows and guffaws realizing that it was not pirate-appropriate to hop and wave. And certainly not 18th century appropriate. 

Just as he was about to feel embarrassed, Rose spotted him and walked quicker, the red curls following at her side. “Doctor,” she said when she reached him, “any luck?”

“Well, yes and no. I found someone who saw him, apparently, and now I’ll need to find a woman with, I quote, nice hips and dark hair. She took him along. Uhm. Who’s your friend?” The woman next to Rose was tall and slim, her reddish hair falling across her shoulders in tangles and curls. Her eyes were blue with speckles of green and underneath the grime of this place he spotted freckles covering her cheeks and the bridge of her nose. She was rather attractive and, considering the place they were in, surprisingly clean.

“Oh, this is Mary. She said she’ll help me look.” 

He stared at her, considering her features. “What is it you want in return?” he asked, ignoring Rose’s gasp and slap on his arm. There was no way this woman was doing it out of kindness – she had the air of a sharp business-woman about her. The wicked smile that crossed her intelligent face was confirmation enough. 

“Sharp, that one,” she nudged Rose with her elbow. “Didn’t tell me he’s so handsome, your Captain. What I want, Captain,” she continued, now firmly in business-mode, “is a means of travel. I want out of here, and you and your first _’mate_ ,” she smirked, pointing at Rose with her thumb, “will grant me a means to do it. I can find anything and everyone in Nassau, you won’t get far without me. All I want is a way off this sandy strip of desperation and you’ll get your kid back, alright?” She put her hands on her hips, chin raised in a clear challenge. 

With a fake smile, putting as much sugar in it as he possibly could, he pulled Rose to the side. “Just a second, darling,” he said in his sweetest voice. “Rose, what did you tell her?” he hissed when they were away enough to make eavesdropping harder, if not impossible. “We don’t have a ship! And I’m not a Captain of anything!”

Rose, visibly recovering from the shock that her new acquaintance had not been as upfront as she had thought, put up her hand to bite her nail. Luckily, she remembered in time that her hands were covered in very questionable dirt and stopped herself. “Nothing! Well… I might have said Tony is your son and you’re the Captain of our ship! I… I’m sorry, she said she’s a tavern-maid and offered to help me look. She never mentioned a price!”

He sighed. “I bet she didn’t.” Mary stood a bit apart, completely unconcerned about the two of them talking. “She knows you’re not a man. Did you tell her?” 

Rose shook her head. “Figured it out quickly. Apparently, my figure isn’t male enough to pretend.” He looked her up and down, smiling at the sight, until she noticed. “Oi, stop that! We have to find Tony! You said you have a lead – let’s go for it. We don’t need her, do we?”

Frowning, he stared at Mary who was still completely unimpressed. “I hope not,” he muttered. “She’s not the kind of person I want to owe a dept to.”

****

Down by the harbour, the Doctor quickly showed her the way the woman named Maggy had pointed out. Rose called her brother’s name at first, but quickly realized that ‘Tony’ was too common to shout across a pirate-harbour if you didn’t want twenty men stare at them. She was still somewhat hidden from too much scrutiny, clad as she was, but she had noticed the discrepancy between the genders in this town.

There were significantly less women here than men. In a setting as rough as a pirate haven would be, that might lead to problems if you were not careful. The Doctor didn’t seem overly concerned, but then again, he never really realized that someone might be prejudiced or gender-biased wherever and whenever they stepped on foreign soil. She’d once nearly been sold as a pet, and he had only realized when her would-be-owner had tried to shove money at him. 

Her heart sped up as they started talking to the first sailor who crossed their path, but the man didn’t look twice at her and only grunted something unintelligible to the Doctor and pointed towards the long side of the beach. “What did he say?” she asked when they followed the rough man’s direction. 

“Well, basically he said ‘grumpf’ and pointed this way. Seems most women can be found there,” he indicated where several persons – women? – were sewing and mending fishing-nets, “or at the uh… establishment.”

Rose didn’t need to ask what establishment, and frankly didn’t care if it was the post-office. They needed to find Tony, and they hadn’t come any closer to finding him than vague hints and bought directions. “Well, let’s ask them then, shall we?” she said impatiently and called out to the first woman on the beach. “Oi! I’m looking for a boy, five years, reddish hair, this high. Seen him?”

“Maggy over there,” he interrupted, pointing somewhere in the direction they’d come from, “said he was with a young woman with dark hair in a plaid and ‘nice hips’. Maggy’s words, not mine.” The women at the nets and sails looked up and one or two rolled their eyes. 

“Ain’t got no time for looking fer boys, sailor. Either he helps or he pays or he’s not important.” The woman, Rose would put her age at about sixty though her appearance could be misleading, considering the century and living-conditions here, looked back at her work. The others around her seemed to agree, some nodding some even snickering and most of them not even bothering to look up. It made her blood boil. This was her brother, and he was bloody _five_ and lost and nobody seemed to care!

She snarled, dangerously close to a growl, and stood right in the woman’s personal space to glare at her. “He’s bloody important, and all of you should care because he’s just a child and is lost and you all sit here and do nothing? What kind of persons are you?” The Doctor pulled her back, maybe afraid she’d hit the woman or maybe for some other reason she didn’t care about. “Let go of me!” she hissed and he did.

The woman looked up and glared right back at her. “Oh, highly-mighty of ye, sailor, calling me careless, when it’s _you_ who’s lost em, haven’tcha? We at might not ‘ave time looking for other people’s children but we sure know where ours are, ain’t we?” The women close to her, who had even cared enough to listen to the exchange, nodded or made other sounds of agreement. “And if we don’t, our lads sure know how te get ‘round ‘ere and come all home for the night or they get a mighty walloping, they all knows that, so they ain’t lost like your precious lad is. So come off ye high position, _sailor_ and don’t come a-judgin’ any of us.” With that, she spat in the sand and continued mending her net, gnarly, dry hands working quickly and surely through the complicated system of knots and strings. Rose blinked, taken aback at her anger. And a little ashamed because the woman was right, it wasn’t their fault they’d lost Tony. It had been theirs, in their haste to have fun and be irresponsible, they’d forgotten to consider everyone else.

It was a painfully familiar situation, except worse than being gone a year had been because if Tony got lost here, there would be no salvation, no forgiveness, no possibility of making things right. Shaken, she stepped back and turned towards the Doctor. His face was filled with understanding and pity, determination and a hint of caution, not regarding her but something else she couldn’t quite grasp. He nodded at the woman.

“Terribly sorry for my mate’s words. If you cannot help, you cannot. Thank you for the time, madam. If you do see him, it would be met with gratitude if you were able to find us and tell.”

“There’s a rew-“ Rose started but a hand slammed onto her shoulder and the Doctor interrupted her quickly. 

“Indeed, we are off. Thank you again, kind ladies.” He bowed and most of the women sniggered, but this time with a hint of being charmed. Unbelievable. What was it with women in History falling over the Doctor wherever he went?

When they were out of hearing-distance, she grabbed his arm and hissed at him. “Why did you interrupt me? If we set a reward, they might help us find him!”

“If we set a reward, Rose, they’ll either bring us any child that looks remotely like Tony, or worse, if they find him, they’ll keep him and try to press more out of us. Those women know how to make a living – they have to, in this town. If they can do it upright, they’ll take any chance they get. Same goes for the men, so we shouldn’t wave the few goods and pieces we have around. We simply can’t afford to waste them.” Before she could argue that Tony was well worth _any_ kind of valuables they had, he held up his hand. “Not that I’m not willing to part from all of it, Rose. But we need to be clever about it. We don’t have enough to pay every person we meet, and it won’t help us if the money runs out before we find him. That reminds me – we need to exchange the jewellery for coins. Have you seen a fencer somewhere?” 

Rose looked around, but since she wouldn’t know a fencer – was that even a real word? – if he bit her in the arse, she couldn’t tell. “I’d rather find that woman, Doctor. How about you change the bling-bling and I’ll go see if I can find her.” After another glance around the harbour, she pointed to one of the bigger ships. “We meet in one hour at this boat, there.”

He looked. “It’s a sloop, not a boat, Rose. But yes. The _Mary-Celeste_. One hour.” He grabbed her hand before she could slink away and squeezed it tightly. “We’ll find him. I’ll do everything to get him back, alright?” 

Rose bit her lips and nodded, but he still wouldn’t let her go. Only after looking up into his face, seeing the promise in his eyes and the certainty that whatever he’d have to do, he’d do it, he gave her another, shorter squeeze and let her hand slip out of his. “Be careful. And remember – no running off…”

“… with Captain Jack. I know.” She even smiled a little, still worried but less so than a moment before. With a last wink and a nod, she turned around and let herself be swept away in the masses of unwashed sailor.

****

He found a merchant who would trade his little loot of jewellery quickly. Apparently, trading goods for coins was one of the main trades in Nassau, equalled only in selling alcohol and providing sexual relief. Now, with sufficient money to buy food and necessities, he followed in Rose’s footprints – not literally – to see if he could find the mysterious woman who may or may not have taken Tony under her wing. Hopefully only that.

When it was time to meet with Rose, he was so hungry his stomach was trying to eat itself and he sadly didn’t have anything positive to report. He’d found some women with dark hair, some of them even had plaids or nice hips. Though to be fair, he wouldn’t be able to tell a nice hip from a not-nice one. Well. Except of course the hips of that one woman, girl more like, who had a bad case of hip-displacement. That had been a very non-nice hip. But as many women as he’d found, as many offers he’d declined, as many hands he’d detached from his pockets, not one of them had seen Tony. And to make it worse – he believed them. It would have been helpful if they’d been lying, or trying to con them, but he was fairly certain that those women didn’t lie. And if they were conning him, they would have to be truly magnificent. They might be, he’d have to admit. Their lives were probably dangerous and would ensure that only the strong or clever ones survived it. 

This time, Rose was already at the spot in front of the , the yellow-red sails of the sloop easy to spot in between the other ships. She was empty-handed as well, no Tony at her side, and it clenched something deep in his chest to see her so defeated and alone. They didn’t talk, the crushed hope on her face when she saw him and the quick glance low to his side didn’t yield a small boy was enough to make talking obsolete. He gave her one of the pouches, filled with silver and a few golden coins and she just nodded in acknowledgement. 

“What now?” Rose asked after they’d wandered the bustling port once more, again with no Tony. 

“There’s one more path we didn’t look,” he said, slightly distracted by the sight of a small-ish child. It was a girl, though, and she did seem to know exactly where she was going. “There’s also plenty of town still left to search. We’ll have to go methodically, device a pattern and-“ 

“And all this time,” Rose interrupted, quite harshly even, “Tony will be alone and in who-knows-what kind of danger? We can’t do that; we have to find him as quickly as possible. Maybe you don’t remember, but being lost anywhere is terrifying! I once got lost in the shopping-arcade, and I had nightmares for weeks!”

He sighed. She was right, but there wasn’t much else they could do. What could they possibly do instead of searching? “I’m sorry, but I don’t have a helicopter or a zeppelin. I don’t even have a dog and my nose is more or less as good – or bad – at smelling things as yours. Not that I think we could even find a rotting fish in this place; the stench is terribly distracting. I would think even the dog would have a problem…” Rose groaned in frustration and he stopped, aware that he’d been on his way to rambling again. 

“I know! But we’re not enough people to conduct a thorough search, Doctor! We need help. And … Why not ask Mary for help? She said she can find things – and people. We’ll just pay her and-“ 

“Rose!” Now it was he who interrupted, stopping in his tracks and stopping her as well. “She doesn’t want money! She wants a way to get out of here, she wants a ship! We don’t have a ship, if you might recall. And no, we’re not taking her along with the vortex-hopper. That cannot possibly end well.”

“I’m not saying we give her what she wants. We promise, and she’ll be none the wiser that we can’t deliver what we say we can, and once she leads us to Tony, we just grab him and jump out of here. End of story. End of this _bloody nightmare_!”

He stared at her, at the blazing eyes and the frustration in every line of her face. At the dirt on her cheeks and the smudges on her teeth, the loose, rough-looking clothes that fit her not at all and yet so damn well. She was the most gorgeous woman he’d ever seen, though he’d seen a lot of beautiful women – and men and gender-neutral entities – and quite a few of them would outshine her physically. But Rose was beautiful inside and out. Maybe even more inside than outside, and that’s why her suggestion was such a shock. Because it was a good idea. A very good one, though of course not without possible problems. But _Rose_ to proposing such a sneaky, underhand way to con someone was a bit of a new experience for him. It showed that she was either much more rattled than he’d thought – quite possible – or that she’d changed a bit more than he’d believed in the time she’d had to fight her own battles for her life. 

“What?” she asked and he just shook his head. 

“Nothing.” He ran his hand through his hair, probably making it stand on end. Very briefly, because his brain was big enough to do more than one thing at once, he wondered if pirates ever had hair like his, short and stubborn and standing upright like a startled hedgehog, sometimes. The ones he’d seen so far usually had long hair, either worn open, or in a ponytail, or in one big messy clump of dreadlocks. That was, if they even had hair at all. “Just… I just don’t think it will end well, but at this point, we might as well. Because I’m all out of ideas.”

****

Mary was easy to find. Rose remembered the name of the ale-house she’d mentioned, and the first pirate who was at least halfway sober had pointed them in the right direction. Behind the bar was a burly man with only one hand and some kind of claw at the end of his other arm. The stump didn’t look so good, Rose thought, but she was no medical professional. He was wiping the wooden top and grumbled something that might have been a ‘welcome’ or a curse to their offsprings, as far as understanding him went.

The place was slowly filling with sailors as it was getting closer to evening. The men were as smelly and loud and boisterous as the ones they’d met and seen outside, but the sheer mass of bodies was making it hard for Rose to stand and stay at one place. She nudged the Doctor at her side to find Mary soon, because if one more of these numbskulls would shove her out of their way, there would be bloodshed. 

Her patience was hanging on a very thin thread. 

Luckily, nonverbal communication still worked with the Doctor and his height allowed him to look over most of the pirates in the room. He pointed to a corner and they made their way there, dodging elbows and sloshing pints and equally sloshed men in various states between ‘upright’ and ‘lying down’. 

They found Mary on a moderately handsome sailor’s lap, rubbing his thigh suggestively and wiggling in ways that couldn’t be lost on the man. If the colour of his ears was any evidence, it was indeed not. She spotted them and stared at their faces. Something on Rose’s must have given her a clue, because she nodded briskly and mimed ‘later’, pointed at another corner and then continued her work, playing with the lapels of the sailor’s shirt with a very deliberate smile. 

Rose wanted to tear her away from that man and demand her help, but the Doctor pulled her along and sat them at a wobbly table with their backs to the thin, wooden wall. Shortly after, an older barmaid came over and brought both of them a pint of ale, demanding pay for it even though they hadn’t ordered anything. Carefully, Rose sniffed at her tankard and took a very cautious sip. The beer was sharp and weak, with a slightly musty aftertaste. Not as bad as she’d feared, but certainly nothing she wanted to drink. 

The Doctor, to her surprise, took a hearty swig after his own sniff. “This tastes awful. Do you really want to drink this?” The idea that he was dulling his senses and would be no help in finding her brother was making her words sharper than intended, but he simply shrugged.

“I really need something to drink, the water here is bound to be abysmally germ-ridden and beer is the least dangerous thing to have. I would prefer coconut-water, but sadly there are no coconuts growing here at this time. So – ale it will be for now. Don’t worry,” he added at her dubious look, “it’s not strong enough to addle our brains, and we really need liquids to keep us steady.” His stomach made a loud noise and he winced in apology. “Maybe something to eat as well.”

Irritated, Rose wanted to shout that this was not the time to _eat_ but she caught herself. He wasn’t wrong, after all: they hadn’t eaten since leaving London and the 21st century and had been running around all day. If she would allow herself to feel it, she would probably be very hungry by now, too. 

With a deep sigh, she took a long swallow out of her mug and grimaced at the taste. When she looked over to Mary and her client, though, her insides twisted once more into a big, anxious knot. Sailor-boy was upright, being led by Mary towards the back-door of the bar. He had a really stupid, smug grin on his face and his mates from their table were yowling encouragements after him. Biting her lip, Rose barely managed to stay on her seat. Surely, Mary would come back when she was finished… right? 

She did. A lot – a _lot_ quicker than Rose had anticipated. In fact, the door had barely closed, Rose had been barely able to take another swig when someone dropped very unceremoniously on the stool at their table. It was Mary, red hair up in a bun, face slightly flushed and a sharp look on her features. 

“That was quick.” The Doctor took the words right out of her mouth. “Not much stamina, that boy, eh?” His smirk was sly and sharp, insulting in a way he rarely was. Maybe he really didn’t like Mary much, or maybe the whole situation was getting to him as much as it was to Rose. 

“Oh, I just warmed him up some,” Mary replied, not at all insulted. She hitched her impressive cleavage higher and smirked at them. “He’s gonna be busy with Mirabel in the shed for a while – she’s much better at that part than I am. What can I do for ya? Came back to take a peek?” She wiggled her bosom and Rose wanted to slap her but reminded herself just in time that as a supposed man, she shouldn’t be bothered by someone making passes at her captain. 

She was, though. Bothered. Quite a lot. 

The Doctor, bless him, did nothing more than raise one of his eyebrows. “You know why we’re here. We …” his teeth ground audibly against each other, “need your help finding th- my boy Tony. As Ro- ss, Ross here, said before.”

With a loud huff, Mary leaned back from the table and squinted at them. “Well, look at that. Came back all the way to ask little old me to help them look, when before they couldn’t even bother to tell me ‘no’, just walked away all huffy and superior, like? Well… look how the mighty have fallen.”

“Drop the act,” the Doctor hissed. “I know you’re not ‘little old you’, you know exactly what you want. We’re prepared to give it to you, but if you’re not interested… maybe someone else will be.”

As he stood, Mary’s hand shot out quickly, catching his wrist. He stilled and there was a threat in his stillness that Rose could interpret all too well. Mary, apparently, was smart enough to understand it, too. She let go of his arm and let him move past her, biting her lip in indecision. With no choice but to follow his lead, Rose stood and moved around the table to walk out after him even though everything inside her screamed not to leave their chance of finding Tony. 

The bluff paid off, though. “Wait,” Mary called. “You will give me passage on your ship if I can find your boy?” The Doctor nodded sharply. Scratching her nose, Mary sniffed, then took a deep breath as if preparing for a jump into the cold ocean. “Fine. I’ll help ya. Meet me here tomorrow morning, sunrise. I’ve got to work tonight but tomorrow. I’ll get you your lad and then we’re off, right?” Her eyes were wide and maybe there was a plea in them if Rose were prepared to allow herself the empathy. She couldn’t quite help but feel sorry for the woman, probably not much older than herself – she might even be younger, hard to tell – and so desperate to leave this place that she was prepared to throw herself at a strange captain and his first mate at the first chance of being taken along. 

Rose hated that sympathetic part of her right now. It made her feel awful about what they were about to do. 

“Right. Tomorrow at sunrise. Do not be late, Mary,” the Doctor said and stalked off, displaying hard lines and authority he so rarely showed since being on Pete’s World. Usually, he was goofy and snarky and fun and a little immature – oh, alright; a _lot_ immature – so it was always a shock when he let the Time Lord show beneath his quirky personality. Even though he was not a full Time Lord, he was still The Doctor – and there was quite a ring to that name. Despite nobody in this world knowing him, or having heard of him, The Doctor could make his name _feel_ powerful just by saying it a certain way, and he certainly had the demeanour of importance down pat. 

God, he was deliciously sexy like this. And Rose was the one who would take him home at the end of the day. 

With a barely-hidden smirk, she walked out after him, quite pleased with him and the situation. Sadly, it only lasted until they stepped out of the bar and into the sunset. It hit her then that their arrangement meant that they would need to find a place to spend the night, and that it would mean hours for Tony to be lost. 

She tried to swallow the lump that was stuck in her throat, but it wouldn’t budge.


	6. Chapter 6

The sky was awash in colour. Pink and purple, blue in various shades, bright-orange and deep red. It looked fantastic and he feverishly wished he were here with Rose and no other worry than looking for a place to lie down and watch Sol leave their vision, painting everything it touched along the way. 

As it were, they had to look for shelter – it would probably not rain until tomorrow, and it was warm enough to sleep outside, so that might not be too much trouble – and tomorrow, they had to con Mary into believing they owned a ship. 

He didn’t know that much about 18th century sailing vessels, he had to admit to himself, but he had the whole night to dredge up enough of his old, half-dismissed knowledge to fake it for a bar-maid, he supposed. How they could convince her that they had a crew at their disposal was another question he didn’t want to ask himself yet. 

Rose was visibly shaken and shaking, the strain of missing her brother and not being able to do anything to get him back finally catching up to her. He took her hand and pulled her along, away from the busy streets which were slowly tinted in deep shadows. Torches were being lit here and there, but their flickering flames weren’t strong enough yet to outshine the last rays of sunlight outside the really dark, shaded gaps and throughways. They left the city behind, following a path that led them towards the forest. But before they could reach the treeline, he veered off the beaten track and down the slope to a spot where they could see the sky, the ocean and the outliers of the town. Wearily, he slumped to the sandy ground and just let himself fall backwards to stretch out his back. His body, for some reason, wasn’t truly happy with the gravity on this Earth. When he was just one instead of two, at their first visit here he hadn’t noticed a difference but maybe something had happened to it in the mean time?

It could, of course, just be that humans in general felt gravity through their spine, and having an aching back was fairly normal. He hadn’t yet been in the mood to ask Rose about it, not keen on admitting to _another_ flaw in his design. His lack of time-sense had already led to a lot of shouting between them until he’d finally admitted that he simply _couldn’t_ keep his appointments without a ridiculous amount of watches, clocks and alarms on his phone. And that wasn’t even taking in account the sheer pettiness time itself used on him. He’d already been through two more wrist-watches, cheap and brightly-coloured and yet just as inefficient at keeping up with his day as the expensive one had been. 

He was starting to despise clocks in general, and that didn’t exactly provide confidence in his resolution to remember and _keep_ all his dates and appointments. 

With a deep sigh, Rose dropped beside him so their shoulders touched. The air was warm and slightly salty and the smell of ozone had increased. Stars were coming out now, their constellations achingly familiar and beloved and yet nothing he’d ever seen before. Not _these_ stars, on _this_ sky. 

His throat felt like someone had put a collar on him, constricted and restrained. It was getting hard to swallow, and he had to shake himself to get rid of the melancholy and concentrate on the task at hand. “Mary will expect us to have some knowledge about ships,” was what he settled on saying. “We should at least be able to talk about the basics and hope she’s not as versed in sailing as we are in making up lies.”

Rose didn’t respond, but from the tension radiating through her shoulder onto him, he knew she hadn’t fallen asleep. “I don’t like lying to her,” she finally murmured, and he was equally glad and annoyed by hearing it. 

He huffed. “I know. And I wish we had another way of finding Tony. Apart from jumping back right to the moment we lost him and grabbing him before he can vanish, though, I am plain out of options.” He would do it. For Rose’s sake and for Tony’s, he’d make the jump into their own timeline and consequences be damned. This would be fairly inconsequential to anything and anyone but them – they were already in the wrong time and at the wrong place. Right now, though, he was determined to try every other option of solving this problem before taking out the really big guns. Tony couldn’t be gone. He had to be around here _somewhere_ , and from what he’d seen so far, Nassau wasn’t overly dangerous to children. Sure, they could be crushed by heavy loads from the ships or get trampled on by drunken pirates and die from scurvy and rotten teeth. But most of the men didn’t care about their presence, one way or the other, and the women seemed resigned to always having children underfoot more than anything. Tony would be fine. 

He just had to be. 

“I don’t think I can sleep,” Rose confessed in a whisper by his side. “My brain is whirling and turning all the possible scenarios, all the ways this could have been prevented. I’m trying really hard to not blame you, because I _know_ it’s not your fault. He’s a sneaky kid when he wants to be, and none of us had been paying attention. But… just being upfront here. If in the near future I shout at you, or am nasty, please don’t think that it’s what I really feel.”

He stared at the sky, blinking in time with his heartbeat. It was rare to hear her be so honest about her thoughts, usually they just danced around the topics until they both understood what the other meant. It wasn’t always accurate, but had its own kind of charm. “Can’t say I will blame you if you do,” he said to the moon. “I…” He didn’t think he’d been overly dismissive with Tony. Usually, he got along well with children of most ages – never too fond of sulky teenagers, but eh – but for some reason with Tony, nothing really… clicked. Yes, the boy was a bit spoiled. Understandable, considering his upbringing and the intense amounts of _love_ that were thrown at him, but he wasn’t worse than any other five-year-old he’d met. Admittedly, that age-group hadn’t crossed his paths too often, but still. It wasn’t that the kid was rude – he was five, after all, and he could be quite rude back, thank you. He couldn’t put his finger on _why_ they never got on. Sadly, it was a fact that they didn’t. And he felt hugely responsible for Tony’s involuntary trip, even though, as Rose had said, he couldn’t possibly have prevented it. They _had_ looked around! Who would think that a little boy would try to jump at them from behind a tiny little wall? “Doesn’t matter. We’ll get him back, I promise. He won’t be lost here, no matter what.”

Without looking at her, he held out his hand in the sand and wasn’t surprised when she put her own palm into his without prompting. Some things between them worked better than others, and this was one of them. “I know,” she said. “Better sleep, right? Gotta be fresh for tomorrow, pretending to be pirates.” He could hear her smile without looking at her. 

He nodded, but when she had put her head on his outstretched arm as a pillow and her breathing had evened out, he kept himself awake until long into the night. There were many worries crowding his mind, one of them Tony and the other the oncoming storm – in this case, a real storm that was truly oncoming – but the most pressing reason was that they couldn’t _both_ sleep, or someone might nick their coins. Or do worse. Once it would have passed three, he’d wake up Rose and let her keep watch, and in the meantime, he recalled everything he knew about pirate sloops and ships in the Caribbean waters in the 18th century. It wasn’t impressive, to be perfectly honest.

****

He woke to the cry of some seabird. Wailing and mournful, its squawk came from just above his head, somewhere in the palm-tree they’d been sleeping under. Rose muttered something in her sleep and he didn’t want to wake her, wishing for the bloody alarm-clock to stop making such a racket before he remembered that he had been supposed to stand guard.

Cursing silently, he sat up, still determined to let Rose get a bit more sleep. A careful inspection of their goods didn’t lead to unpleasant surprises, so he made an effort to calm his rapidly beating heart. He might have slipped up, but they hadn’t lost anything and would be able to start their plan to get Tony immediately. 

The watch in the vortex-hopper on his wrist was, astonishingly, still working and according to it and in careful consideration of the latitude they were in as well as the colour of the sky, they still had about an hour until they would have to meet Mary. Good. 

For a few minutes, he indulged in the luxury of watching the sky change colour, taking the time to really see the dark grey turn into a lighter shade of blue until he spotted the first hints of red at the horizon. It had been ages until he’d just watched a sunrise without anything pressing to disturb him. Yes, finding Tony was very pressing, but they wouldn’t be able to do anything until they met with Mary and so he just … indulged. 

When it was clear that the sun wouldn’t wait for him to drink his fill, he gently shook Rose’s shoulder and nudged her until she grumbled. It pained him when her lovely morning-grumpiness turned abruptly into startled panic when she realized where they were and what was on the agenda, but it couldn’t be helped. Maybe, after they got back from this mess, they could take the time and skip to some interesting place – and time – and just watch sunrises and sunsets for a bit. Just for old-times’ sake. Make some new and good memories, overwrite the old ones which still hurt now and then for being… well. Old.

“It’s okay, we got time,” he assured her quickly. “Still about half an hour ‘till we have to see Mary. Time enough to eat something, even. If we’re lucky, something without fish.” His stomach rumbled, complaining that he hadn’t had anything since lunch with the Tylers. Still, even though she hadn’t had anything, either, Rose shook her head. 

“Don’t want to be late. If we find something edible on the way, fine. But we shouldn’t go out of the way to find anything specifically. Not until we find him.” She brushed sand from her clothes and tried to straighten her blouse. “Let’s go.” Her voice was business-like and harsh, and even though he knew for a fact that he wasn’t the target of her coldness, it stung to be treated like a colleague or an underling. But pride wasn’t appropriate here, and he followed her lead back into town.

****

Nassau was so completely not what Rose had imagined that even at the second time entering it, she was shocked by its state. She’d – perhaps foolishly – assumed it would look like the places from pirate-movies, with wooden houses and water and cobbled streets and all that. Instead, it was barely more than a shelter, and not a pretty one at that.

This early in the morning, only few people were milling about the streets. Mostly women on their various tasks, determined to be done before the men woke and made living harder for them, and some late-night-drinkers stumbling back to their sleeping-quarters. Fishermen, it seemed, had already gone out to sea. From the little crest they had slept on last night, she had seen quite a few sails on the water, going out to bear the waves which seemed to be higher than yesterday. 

The sky had started out bright and beautiful, but it was already darkening again; the big, black-violet cloud that had been visible the day before had come closer during the night. She’d woken once when something moved close to them, an animal in the dark but not anything human. Rose had been able to fall back into dreams quickly, but she’d been awake enough to marvel at the sleeping Doctor right under her neck. 

In the early days of their life together – with this version of the Doctor, not the life together with the Time Lord – he’d been barely able to sleep through a night. Nightmares had kept him awake so much that he’d looked like a ghost on most days, pale with big, black smudges under his eyes. Now, more than a year later, he didn’t have them in regular intervals anymore. Just now and then he’d startle himself awake and walk around like a shade of himself over the course of the day. It wasn’t like she had no nightmares – she actually had quite a few – but she’d never been as impacted by them as he was. He said it was because his consciousness wasn’t used to living through stuff in such rapid successions, that Time Lords didn’t sleep so much and that his brain would eventually catch up with his biology and sort things better so his brain could stop making such a mess of him.

She didn’t know enough about his original biology to judge the truthfulness of that and watching him last night she had to concede that he probably had known what he’d been talking about. Dreams could be pesky, she knew quite well herself. From work, she also knew that living through traumatic events nightly could be just as traumatic as the actual event if it went on for too long. Last night, with moonlight on his face, he’d looked at peace and maybe even content. She used to watch him sleep a lot while they’d been… whatever you would call their time together-apart, after they’d been sorta dumped together with a friendly ‘shake well and then be happy’-pat on the back from the original Doctor. Back in the days, her Doctor would fall asleep during the day often and in very strange places, and she’d had ample opportunity to study his features when he wasn’t paying attention. 

Now, their sleep-rhythms had caught up to each other and she rarely had the chance to see him dream. It was nice to do it here, without the gnawing worry if he’d ever be able to cope with coming here, if having Rose in his life would ever measure up to all the things he had known and was now missing. Because these days, Rose knew that she did. 

It was a good feeling.

Back in town, she was distantly aware that she was being brusque and rude but couldn’t quite make herself get out of the Torchwood-agent mindset. It was what was needed now, not the panic-stricken big sister she had been yesterday. If she was rude to her Doctor for a while, she was sure he could get over it. They had finally arrived at a place where he wouldn’t just simply bow down to everything she demanded, as he’d been prone to do in their beginning. 

Rose knew where it had come from, and yet it had rankled. Or maybe because of it. The first months in London, he’d been too afraid to lose her to ever oppose anything she wanted. Too scared to even make a decision on his own just in case it would mean she’d leave him. Whenever she’d pushed him to decide something, he’d been hesitant and fearful and so completely _alien_ that it had hurt her more than she was comfortable with. Frankly, it had been insulting. As if she’d ever be so superficial and petty! Knowing there was more behind his action than what she could understand hadn’t helped. If she were honest to herself, she would admit that she hadn’t handled him very well then. She knew nobody would blame her, least of all her Doctor. And still, his meekness had driven her insane. She hadn’t wanted _that_! All she’d wanted was the Doctor, not some … puppet to play with after her own heart’s content. The more he’d given in, the more she’d pushed and demanded and things had only sorted themselves out once he’d met Donna Mott and he’d slotted into his own skin nearly seamlessly. Maybe, when it came down to it, Rose actually _wasn’t_ enough on her own. Apparently, it took more than one thing, more than one person to save the Doctor from his own mind.

As much as she hated when they fought, as much as he drove her around the bend with his issues and distractedness sometimes, she was bloody delirious that she finally could _yell_ at him without feeling like she kicked a little puppy. He still got insecure now and then, but only later, not during their rows. And that was much better for her sanity than the cowering, diminutive Doctor he’d been before, who’d prevented her from really saying what needed to be said by giving in to everything. 

Her being abrupt and tense now, in a crisis, and maybe treading on his toes here and there would not even register on their relationship-status-bar. He’d either push back when she crossed a line or he’d ignore it. Watching him strut into Nassau like he owned it was just delightful, and in a very secret part of her mind, Rose cursed Tony for ruining her first real trip to something _fun_. She’d have loved to peel the Doctor out of his pirate-clothes at night and call him ‘Captain’ in bed. 

Well, once they got the pest of her little brother back home, she might still do it anyway.

****

Mary was waiting once they arrived at the ale-house, though it didn’t seem to have been long. She looked, Rose would have to say, really beautiful. With her long, reddish curls and her height, she would turn a lot of heads in London, probably anywhere she went. Maybe she turned heads in Nassau, but if that were so, it didn’t seem to be what Mary wanted.

She huffed once she saw them, and Rose saw something pass over the Doctor, something like a veil or a cape that made him, without having anything different to wear, appear suddenly flashier and taller and more impressive.

It made her own shoulders straighten in response, some animal-instinct matching his standing with her own, donning invisible armour around her shoulders. It wasn’t half as impressive as his, she thought. She’d turned quite a few heads of her own, as a woman but also as an agent at Torchwood, with her name and her feats following in her wake and making crowds part when she so wanted. In the shade of the Doctor in full battle-mode, everything paled by comparison. But she was still Agent Tyler, and she could demand her own kind of respect. 

“Mary,” the Doctor stated once they were close enough. “Good to see you’re here already,” as if _they_ had been waiting for her. God, it made something shiver down Rose’s spine to see and hear him be so darn self-assured. “Let’s get on with the boy-finding.”

Mary, though she clearly straightened on his approach, wasn’t easily swept away in his wake. She stood her ground and smiled cockily, probably used to leading men of all status around on their noses – or rather, around on their cocks. “Will we, right? But better you tell me your name, then, and we can get on with all of it and be on our way, then.”

“His name’s none of-“ Rose started, but he held up his hand, taking control of the situation now. She would have let him anyway – words were his weapon, always had been. 

“I’m the Doctor, and this is Ross Tyler. He’s my first mate.”

Mary smirked at Rose. “First _mate_ indeed, Captain Doctor. Fine. I’ve got an idea where we could look for your lad. Follow me.” She turned, her dress fluttering around her legs like the Doctor’s coat used to do. Rose thought she saw a pinch of envy in his face and rolled her eyes.

****

Mary led them through the narrower streets of Nassau, mostly uphill until the ground evened out a little. From what Rose could see, they were mostly passing residential huts and tents, except for a few that looked like they offered business of the horizontal kind. It could still very well be residential, Rose supposed. She wouldn’t judge, had long since stopped judging other cultures beyond how they treated their own citizens. Well, that and how they treated strangers who unwillingly and accidentally stumbled into their world and didn’t know hats from tails, of course.

It didn’t occur to her until they reached a particular tent-like hut that Mary’s gait was very purposeful and direct, that for someone who was supposed to help them search, Mary had a very clear goal where she led them. The Doctor might have thought about it, judging from the way his hands had clenched along the way. But Rose wasn’t completely sure; could be he was just very hungry. Anyway, the thought that they were being led astray didn’t pop into her head until they stopped in front of that hut-tent and Mary knocked on the door. Or rather, on the wooden planks leaning against the opening which seemed to count as ‘door’. It was a very particular knock – three rapid ones followed by a rather complicated staccato-rhythm Rose didn’t quite catch. 

The door-thing opened only a few seconds later, before Rose or the Doctor could ask what all this was about. Another woman stepped out, her hair dark like mahogany and kept in a braid across her shoulder. She looked at Mary and then nodded, stepping aside to let them all in. “’Bout time,” she said, a slight Irish lilt in her sentence. They all stepped into the darkish room and Rose nearly stopped breathing, something stuck in her throat that was restricting air.

On a stool, at a wobbly table, sat a little boy with strawberry-blond curls. He was wearing a lion’s costume underneath a pair of sailor’s breeches and was eating some sludgy porridge-like substance with banana-slices for breakfast. 

Tony. 

Before she could say anything, the dark-haired woman coughed loudly. “I believe I found your dad, laddy,” she said to the boy and Tony looked up, towards the door, visibly happy and excited. He deflated once he spotted the Doctor, and grumpily turned towards his food again.

“Not my Daddy,” he said. “Don’t like him.” 

If she hadn’t been paying attention because everything in the hut had sharpened to the point of clear brilliance, Rose wouldn’t have spotted the small tells of the man in front of her. The slight tightening of his shoulders, the subtle clenching of his fist, quickly dropped. The miniscule tick at his lower jaw. She had been studying this face for so long, had seen him as a Time Lord and learned to read his tells and now, as a half-human and as her partner in every sense of the word, she’d sharpened those skills even more. Someone not as familiar with him, no matter how skilled, wouldn’t have seen how much those words from her little brother had stung, though it would probably not require much skill to come to that conclusion by simply adding up the evidence. 

Right now, though, she didn’t quite care. “Tony!” she called, in relief and a little bit as reprimand, and he perked up and was out of his seat in seconds, throwing himself into her arms.

“Rose!” he squealed, “Rose, there are _pirates_! And Emm here gave me b’nanas and we had fish last night and it was really yucky and I slept on a sack with _straw_ and it smelled like pee and then we had more b’nanas and there were ships, we saw ships, really cool ships with sails and,” he lowered his voice, like he was telling her a big secret “they had _cannons_!”

“Well, so much for him being your boy, eh?” Mary’s voice was mocking but not suspicious. She’d probably figured out that they hadn’t told much of the truth about Tony, and there would be no hiding of Rose’s gender now. If there had ever been a chance of hiding it in the first place. 

“Couldn’t very well tell all the world now, could we?” the Doctor declared, full of confidence and swagger. He took everything in stride and Rose didn’t much care, was just trying to inch her way towards him so they could all hold on together and slip out with the vortex-hopper. So far, Mary was in the way, though, and she didn’t seem to want to budge. 

“Guess not. Though’s not too bad having your wifey on board, right, Emm?” Mary nudged her friend, who smiled like a shark. She, as Mary, was surprisingly beautiful, dark eyes and dark hair, slightly darker skin than was usual for a British citizen, even accounting for their location. 

“No, guess not. Guess he’s not much of a father now, isn’t he? Maybe not even the father at all, eh?” Her accent, though, was clearly Irish. “Maybe they’ll be running off with each other, from some rich, posh, English Lord or summthin?” Emm had stepped behind Tony now, holding on to his shoulder. “Little lad here’s been real cute’n all. Very polite, that one.”

The Doctor snorted. “Right. As if…” he muttered under his breath, trying now too to inch surreptitiously towards Rose and Tony. Just as Rose, he was held off by Mary. Rose’s skin was beginning to prickle – this wasn’t going to be as easy as they’d assumed. 

“Good manners, though, don’t buy you food. So – how’s about the payin’ up for my help, Captain?” The Doctor opened his mouth but Mary interrupted before he could draw a breath. “Price’s gone up for lyin’. Now’s two people’s passage. And don’t even try the ‘no women-folk on ships, ‘s bad luck’-bullshit, either. Not with little wifey there,” she pointed at Rose, “right by your side.”

Emm now held Tony to her chest, a place the little tyke had gone willingly. At least, even though Rose suspected he was now a hostage, he’d been treated well and with kindness, or he wouldn’t have been so trustful. “We don’t mean no harm to you or your boy, Captain.” Emm’s eyes were round and pleading. “We need to get off this island, and no-one will take us. Not even for payment, and not even if it’s not in gold, either. We’re no strangers to that, but we’d rather not on a ship filled with men with no wives for weeks!”

Yeah. Rose winced. That didn’t sound like a good deal for her, either. 

It made her feel terrible for promising the two women something they couldn’t provide, for trying to trick them. It made her want to help, get them off this sandy beach to wherever they wanted to go, but the fact remained that they didn’t have a ship. And even if they wanted, they couldn’t take them with the vortex-hopper. 

And they certainly didn’t want. 

“D – Captain…”

She saw him clench his jaw, then exhale. “Fine. I need to discuss this with my first… with Rose. If you can give us a minute?”

“Sure,” Emm said. “I’ll just finish feeding your boy, how’bout that?” She winked and then took Tony by the hand and whispered something in his ear that made Rose’s brother perk up and bounce on his toes. 

“Really?” he cried in excitement? “So cool!” Happily, he bounced back to the table with Emm by his side. If there ever had been, now there wasn’t any doubt that the two women clearly knew what they were doing, and that Tony would remain in their custody until they got what they wanted.

Rose itched to grab her brother and disappear, but instead she stepped outside and waited for the Doctor to join her. They had a new plan to hatch; one that would be a lot harder to come up with.

****

This was exactly what he’d feared would happen. He’d been a little suspicious of Mary all along, and especially since she’d been leading them straight to the place where Tony had been. This woman wasn’t a simple barmaid, or a simple prostitute. She was nothing at all simple, and in different circumstances he would have loved to get to know such a sharp mind better.

As it were, her sharp mind had put them in a bind. A mind-bind, so to speak. Hee.

“We have a problem”, Rose said once they were outside and a few feet away from the hut. 

He glared at the sky, because glaring at Rose wouldn’t be fair nor would it accomplish anything. “You think?” Sarcasm, though, was not as easily contained. “How in the world will we get a ship? Because I’m not an expert in 18th century market-values, but I doubt we can buy one with the coins we have on us. Maybe a rowboat, if we’re very lucky…”

Rose sniffed and he wasn’t sure if it was from annoyance or stress-levels returning to normal and leaving her jittery and emotional. He now knew from experience that both options were equally likely. “How would I know? I’ve never even been on a boat, definitely not on a ship. Can’t we… I don’t know, con them somehow?” 

He doubted that, he really did. Still, biting back the sharp reply seemed the best option and instead he just tugged on his ear, wishing that he’d worn one of Jackie’s earrings just so he could tug on that now. “I don’t think so, Rose,” he finally admitted. “I’ suppose we should continue to try and get Tony to us somehow, but we should definitely attempt to somehow get a ship. Because those two are not only smart, they’re desperate. Desperate, smart people are very, very dangerous. I’d rather they keep to being kind towards your brother.”

“What… I don’t suppose you could grab Tony and jump back with him, then come back to get me?”

He scrunched his nose up at that suggestion. Leaving Rose – anywhere or anywhen – was certainly not on his agenda. He _would_ do it if he had to, but he’d really rather not. “Let’s keep that option as a last resort, how about that? I’d have to time it perfectly, so I won’t come back to an empty room to find all three of you gone.” Or worse – find Rose dead. He didn’t think he’d survive with Rose dead. 

“Well, if you’re so concerned about my safety, how about you give me the hopper and I jump out and back?” 

Ah.

“Oh.” He tugged at his ear again. Then once more, for good measure. “Well, this would be the time where I tell you that it’s locked to my DNA, wouldn’t it?”

Rose glared, then took a deep breath, glared up at the sky and bit down on something distasteful. Probably an answer, but it was possible she was imagining biting something of his, and removing it with her teeth. He swallowed hard. “Yes,” Rose growled between her teeth, “this would be the time.” She composed herself with great effort so that her voice was more or less neutral when she continued. “Fine. So that’s out, then. You won’t jump without me, which means we are stuck in this until we get those two wenches what they want. Now – since _you_ refuse to do the sensible thing, _you_ figure out how we get a bloody pirate-ship!”

Now, that was completely unfair! It was her brother, after all, not his. And it had been _her_ idea to try and con Mary, as it had been _her_ idea to ask Mary for help in the first place. Still. Arguing about this wouldn’t get them anywhere. And she wasn’t wrong – if he were prepared to jump without her, they could solve this real quick. He wasn’t, so the point was moot. 

“Fine,” he glared. “I’ll think of something. You can stay here and make sure they don’t feed Tony something he will puke up again. See you later.” And he turned to stalk off in a huff. Rose, though, wasn’t done with him, it seemed. She grabbed his arm and tugged him back, not hard but determined. 

He turned and her face stopped him and all his inner huffing. “Don’t run off like that, please. I… I’m sorry. I’m just… this isn’t really a perfect situation, and I’m all … scrambly inside. Let’s think about something together, alright? We’re a team now, remember? Shiver and Shake?” She nudged him with her elbow and he couldn’t help it, he had to smile. 

“I’m Shiver, though,” he said, nudging her back. Her grin, with the twinkle in her eyes, was enough to make him forget the bind they were in and wish for a quiet place to make her smile some more, in a lot more private fashion. 

“Well, I’m not going to be Shake” she replied, but then she took a deep breath and turned towards the horizon. “How much do we have to worry about that, then?” She pointed to the big cloud, still far off but definitely closer than last time he’d looked. 

“A bit, I’d say,” he mumbled, calculating air-currents and temperature and wind and everything he knew about meteorology. Which was quite a lot. “Maybe a bit more. But not too much, that’s at least one more day away, so we should see how to get one of these,” he pointed at the sloops out at sea, “and see how we get those two lovely maids onto one of them.” _And hope we don’t have to actually steer such a monster,_ he added silently. With their luck, they would probably have to.


	7. Chapter 7

After telling Emm and Mary that they would be down at the harbour, ‘checking on the crew’, they did exactly that. Except they didn’t check on _their_ crew, since they didn’t have one. 

“How hard would it be to steal one?” Rose murmured from her perch against a wooden fence-post, low enough to not be heard by one of the many fishermen hauling in their catches. 

He stuck his tongue to his teeth and sucked on it, thinking about all the variables they would have to calculate for. “Well. Maybe not too hard. We’d have to find one that’s nearly empty, then get over to it with a rowboat. We could manage that, no problem. The problem would be convincing Mary and Emm that the ship is really ours, and that our crew’s under deck or something. I have a feeling they won’t be convinced easily, more’s the pity. Getting them on it – also not a problem. But what’s after?” He looked over, hoping to see a spark of an idea on Rose’s face. She was frowning, not exactly spreading confidence. 

“I really don’t know. I… honestly, I feel bad about them. I wish we could do something, get them out of Nassau, as they want. They’ve been decent to Tony, Emm’s actually been very kind. He likes her.” Which, considering the little shit didn’t _like_ many people he met, was saying something. “Why can’t we just jump them out?”

“The hopper only carries three, for one. And no, still not jumping without you.”

Rose huffed. “You’re being irrational about this. It won’t even be long, just a quick jump there and back. You didn’t use to be like that – I remember you wanting to take Madame de Pompadour on a trip with the Tardis! This isn’t much different, really.”

“I know,” he sighed, indeed aware about the foolishness of his behaviour. But there was just something utterly terrifying at the thought of leaving Rose anywhere while he was off, jumping to wherever. He _knew_ it was silly – stupid, even – but he couldn’t help himself. His gut clenched and his brain refused to work beyond calculating all the possible problems, all the ways Rose could be lost to him forever. It wasn’t a problem to have her be away from him. It was the idea of being years and dimensions apart… just not possible. “Believe me, I know. If there’s really no other choice, if there’s life and death depending on it – and I mean ours – well… Maybe. But there has to be another solution.”

Something on his face must have told her about his inner workings because her eyes softened and she gave a wry smile. “Fine. Alright. Let’s look for other options first. So, can’t we get them passage on a ship with another captain? Ah… no, I remember, they tried that.” Rose rubbed her cheeks, pulling a face afterwards when she noticed the grime and dirt that the motion forming into small rolls. “So, what else?”

In the end, after pondering ideas back and forth, they had still not come to any conclusion when Mary found them. The sun was high in the sky and the midday-heat was making the stenches and fragrances of Nassau even worse than before. Mary parked herself next to Rose, staring at the harbour with a hard twist to her mouth. 

“You don’t have a ship, do you?”, she came right out with the big elephant on the beach. “You’re all fake and false, just a bunch of high-strung fortune-seekers, amiright?” She didn’t look at them, gaze fixed on the horizon. There was a tick underneath her right eye, betraying fear and anger on her otherwise emotionless face. 

Rose opened her mouth, to say what he didn’t know. Maybe confirm Mary’s suspicion, maybe deny it. But he beat her to it. “No, we don’t. Could have guessed, couldn’t you? What kind of sailor calls himself ‘Doctor’, right?” 

Mary barked a sharp, short laugh. “Indeed, I should have. I’ve just thought… but of course, why would this work out for us. We never get a good deal, not since Emm left that good-for-nothing piece of shit husband of hers. But,” she turned and there was an ugliness in her features that made him want to run away so she wouldn’t have to say out loud whatever was running through her mind. “But, we’re not letting you off the hook just like this. Your boy,” she turned to Rose, “he said you’re his sister, right?” Rose nodded, silent. Her face betrayed her compassion, her understanding of Mary’s plight. He knew she wanted to help, and he wished … Well.

“We could pay you!” He just threw it out the first thing on his mind. “Well… we don’t really have much. But whatever we have, you can have it.” 

“Right.” Mary frowned. Clearly, she’d not anticipated that. “It’s not really money that’s the issue. I earn enough, quite a lot, actually. Gold still won’t get us out of Nassau, so it’s not such a big help.”

Still, it had stopped her from hurting Rose by destroying her faith in Mary’s goodness and that was worth a lot to him. The three of them stared out at the water, his own eyes locked on the approaching storm. Maybe a day had been too generous. Maybe it would hit tonight or early the next morning. Already, he could see the fishermen tightening their vessels securely and the merchants securing their wares with ropes and wooden tent-pegs. Even without meteorological knowledge, he would have been able to gather that the storm was arriving earlier rather than later.

Trust a sailor to know the weather at sea. 

All around them, people were starting to prepare for high winds, tightening what was possible, bringing inside what could be carried. The town would be blown to bits, if he had to guess, but the citizens were apparently used to such things. Would have to be, sitting smack in the middle of the Hurricane Alley. 

“Can you or Emm sail?” he said, distracted by a woman with very impressive cleavage rolling a really big, heavy-looking barrel along the street while her daughter, barely older than ten or twelve, wrestled with a very reluctant goat. Only the continued silence from his side shook him out of his observations and he turned to see both women staring at him in surprise. “What?”

“You just asked if they can sail, Doctor,” Rose said. Her words where slow and careful, as if she weren’t sure he would understand her otherwise. Rude! 

“Yes? So? Can they?”

Mary chuckled. “Would be rather unseemly for a woman, sailing, right?”

He gave her a look and a very grim expression that might have been misinterpreted as a smile. “That’s not what I asked, is it? Am I right to assume that your lack of proper answer means that you can?”

Twitching, as if uncomfortable by his prying, Mary looked to her shoes in the sand. “Learned it from my father. Pretended I was a boy, early on, trying to get me into a proper job when he got ill. ‘s just bad luck these here,” she hefted her breasts with her hands in emphasis “turned out to be too visible to fool anyone for long.”

Rose gasped. “You can sail? Why the hell didn’t you say so? If you can sail, you can get out of this place on your own! All you need is a ship – there are plenty of bloody ships out there!” Angry, she pointed towards the shoreline. “Just buy one, or bloody grab one if you don’t have the bloody funds! Jeez!”

Glaring back, Mary raised herself from her slouch. “Oh yeah? Well, _darling_ , maybe in your rich little puppet-house with your wonky, skinny husband,” she ignored his outraged ‘Oi!’ “it’d be easy to sail away, but out here in the true world, there’s not much you can do with no cock in your underpants! Nobody would sail for us, or with us, and if you think in your blond little brain that you can sail one of these with just one person, or two, you’re bloody well mad! You need twelve people at the least to sail ‘em, they’re not a bloody rowboat or some dinghy you ship over your lily-pond, sunshine!”

When it seemed the two would start using knuckles soon, he stepped between Rose and Mary. “Hooo, calm down, you two! So – Mary. You can sail, right? You know how these things work?” He nudged his head towards the harbour and waited until she finally nodded. “Good. So, we need a crew then, right? Men – or women, even – who want to get off this sandy rock just as much as you, who want adventure and freedom, right?” Again, Mary nodded. “Great! So – let’s go find a crew then! Twelve men, you say? Ah, that’d be easy, I bet. Your work would provide good intel on anyone who’s by now unemployed and eager to find a new ship, I’ll be your Captain for anyone who’s nosy and you just tell me what to yell really loud to all of them so we get the sails into any kind of working order. How’s that sound?” he beamed, because that was a brilliant plan, if he said so himself. 

Sadly, Rose and Mary didn’t seem to agree, judging from their doubtful looks. Even in the Caribbean, everyone was a critic, apparently.

****

It had finally happened. The Doctor had finally lost all his marbles. His idea was so incredibly ludicrous that it might even be close to feasible, though, so Rose didn’t call him out on his lunacy. They still needed to get out of here, and if that meant finding a crew for a bloody ship that they didn’t even have yet, well… They had done crazier things.

While the Doctor and Mary went to talk to all those drunken and half-asleep sailors in the taverns, Rose sat with Emm and tried to learn as much about sailing as she could. Since that wasn’t much, as Emm wasn’t skilled in sailing but rather in sewing, they concentrated on the names of the ships at the harbour, the size, crew and availability of them and how easy or hard it would be to get one of them and sail it away. 

All during an approaching storm. Hallelujah. 

Tony sat in the back of the hut, tinkering with a basket full of nuts and seeds. Funny, how he could be entertained by such simple things for hours when at home he was barely satisfied with the toys he had. And there were many. Maybe the Doctor wasn’t all wrong when he said Tony was a little spoiled. 

Well, his words were more along the line of _’spoiled him rotten, your parents did, didn’t they?’_. Yeah. Perhaps he had a point. 

“How do we get past the guard, then?” she asked, turning back to the subject at hand. “Stealing a boat isn’t so hard, but the guard on board might be a problem, right?”

Emm smirked and cocked her eyebrows. “You should see Mary in action. Neary a man can resist her charm if she wants to get something. Really, ‘s a wonder that girl isn’t married to a king already, with that talent of hers. Prolly only cus she’s not met any kingly person yet.” 

Rose studied her features. While true that Mary was a stunning woman, Emm had a lot to go for her. She had dark eyes that were nearly black, her hair was long and thick and healthy-looking and her features very feminine, very pretty. Maybe it was the colour of her skin that made her less desirable, Rose mused, though if she were to judge, she’d give more points to Emm than to Mary. Then again, it seemed Mary was the more outgoing personality of those two, the one with the spunk and drive to get what she wanted while Emm was – maybe? – just fine with drifting along in her friend’s wake? 

She shook off her pointless thoughts. It didn’t matter now, did it? “Alright. So – what do we do with him once we’re on board? Just put him in the rowboat and send him off, I presume…”

“Well, I’d have tossed ‘im overboard. We’d need the boat later on, won’t we?”

Frowning, Rose looked up. “Are you certain he can swim? Because I’ll tell you, we’re not tossing anyone overboard who can’t swim. You might think the Doctor is a fool, but he’s not, and there are a few lines he won’t cross. Drowning people certainly is one of them.”

Emm sighed. “Fine. I don’t think anyone on this island can actually swim, so there won’t be any tossing. We’ll just have to hope we find another rowboat later on, then. Once we have the ship, we get the crew on board and off we go.”

When a short and rather harmless gale passed the hut that made the roof rattle a little, Rose shivered. “Will we be alright with the weather? I fully admit, I have no clue about ships. At least not about those that go on the ocean, and even the others I don’t know much about. So – that storm out there, is it going to blow us to pieces?”

“Naw,” Emm dismissed the thought. “We’ll just be using the darkness and the wind to our advantage. T’morrow morning, storm’ll be close enough to make the world darker and people hide inside when the rain starts. Will be a lot easier to fool anyone, an’ we can just grab one of them rowboats easy. Once we’re on board, we’ll be off, then go on find a place to anchor her and wait the real storm out. No problem, shouldn’t be. ‘s not the first bad weather we had here. Where’re you and that hubby of yours from, eh? Never seen them like you before, looking like sailors and speaking like posh people from England.”

“Oh. Well, we’re from London. Nothing really mysterious about us, and oh, wasn’t that someone at the door?” Rose jumped up to escape the questions. She wouldn’t have had problems spinning a fairy tale a few years back, but the Doctor had her a little bit worried about timelines now, too, with his fear of messing them up. What if she told Emm too much and something got wrong and someone wouldn’t be born? What if it would lead to … well, Lumic not being a rich megalomaniac and the Doctor and herself would never fall through the void and they’d never meet Pete and things would end up with Rose slipping into the void and being stuck there. In literal hell, as the Doctor had put it. 

So she went to the door and opened it, very surprised when there was actually someone there who looked equally surprised at her yanking it before he even knocked. Mary, slightly behind the Doctor, laughed a rough, crude laugh and shoved past him. “Out of the way, you fools. Emm! Looks like we can finally pack. Bit short on men, we’ll be, but ten’s all we could muster.”

Emm, from her perch at the rickety table, grinned. “Being short on men would be a welcome first, I guess. Fine, then. Let’s pack. You lot – better find a place to sleep for your captain, ‘Ross’. Not gonna let that sort lay inside with us girls, we won’t. Tony’s a good lad, he can stay with us.”

Or, plainly spoken, get the Doctor out and leave Rose and Tony as leverage inside their clutches. Rose fumed internally, but there was not much she could do to protest. Presumably, she would be allowed to sleep somewhere with the Doctor, but she’d rather not leave Tony with the two barmaids, even though he trusted them and they most likely wouldn’t hurt him.

But there it was. ‘Most likely’ just wouldn’t cut it, not when it was Tony on the line. The Doctor would be fine, she knew, and they could all go get some de-lousing shampoo back in their own time. God, how she yearned for a shower… And a toothbrush. 

The Doctor motioned her to follow him, and they stepped back out into the street. It was noticeably emptier than it had been before, and there was a certain gloom in the sky that made her cross her arms in front of the chest. “Did you really find ten sailors to follow that barmy plan of yours?” she asked, looking up into his familiar and loved face. It seemed to her like she hadn’t properly seen him for weeks, though it couldn’t have been more than two days since she’d last taken the time to really, truly study all of his features and count all of his adorable freckles and made him look so enticingly flushed and flustered. She missed it, and once they got back home, she would make sure to re-familiarize herself with all of her Doctor. 

“Well.” He smiled at her, the soft crinkles at his eyes deepening. “They’re probably not the best stock one would wish for. But they’re sailors, they’re keen on finding a new vessel and follow a captain and the promise of having to share all treasure we’ll find made them really happy. I’d say they’ll do. No Jack, by the way,” he winked cheekily. “I made certain to exclude anyone with that name.”

Rose slid her hand inside his shirt and let it glide along his ribcage. Not enough to tickle him – he was incredibly ticklish, which she’d been delighted to find out – but enough to feel his breath hitch and his muscles tense in anticipation. “Can’t handle the temptation so close, mon Capitan?” He shivered. “Too scared of the competition, Captain, my Captain?” 

His eyes had turned dark, close to black and he pulled her closer, a bit rougher than usual but oh-so-fantastic. “No competition. I don’t tolerate competition,” he muttered in her ear, right before nibbling on her earlobe. Now it was Rose’s turn to shiver. 

“We should,” she stopped to gasp, then found her words again. “We should either stop this or see if we can find a place to continue. But since I’m rather partial to bedding without straw poking me, I’d suggest we delay.” She was proud that such intelligent sentences could still spill from her lips when all she really wanted to say was incoherent babble and moaning. She felt him take a deep breath against her neck and then tense, pulling away from her with reluctance. 

“Spoiled, that’s what you are. Rose Tyler, too spoiled to have a rump in the hay,” he mocked. 

“Oh, I wouldn’t mind hay. It’s just the straw I don’t fancy. And the poking.” He waggled his eyebrows and she groaned, giggling. At least they’d managed to kill the mood for the moment. “Not _that_ kind of poking. Now shoo. Find someplace to curl up and have some shut-eye, Doctor. I know you need it, even if you pretend you don’t.” She gently shoved him away and he let himself stumble backwards a few feet, looking deliberately sad and abandoned. “Stop that. Or I’ll make you stay with Tony and the Terrible Two in there.”

He gasped. “You wouldn’t!” But he grinned and backed away some more. “Be good, Rose Tyler. Don’t go running off with any blokes now, my pirate-bride.” 

Laughing, she kicked some sand after him, pretending to be annoyed. “Oi, as if I would run away with any old ‘bloke’. Only the best will do. I’ll only go for the ones with time-travel-abilities.” She stepped back inside and closed the door, assaulted at once by Tony who clamped on her leg.

“Rose, we will sleep here again! Rose, isn’t Mary the coolest? Have you seen her hair? Will my hair look like hers? Why isn’t your hair red? Rose? ROooose!”


	8. Chapter 8

The night had been quite terrible. His bed had been lumpy and hard, much less comfortable than the sand from the night before and during the very early morning-hours, the wind had picked up and had started to rattle the foundation of the little tavern he’d managed to get a bed in. Not a room, mind. A bed. Meaning a sack of cloth filled with straw and maybe strips of other cloths, maybe even some bones and whole birds. At least it had felt like that. He’d spent some time before falling asleep feeling miserable and missing his Tardis with an ache he usually managed to suppress.

The room had been filled with smelly, snoring, mumbling sailors, sleeping in hammocks or on similarly uncomfortable looking mattresses on the floor. Nothing from that arrangement had been restful, but he’d had a very interesting evening where he’d come to chat with the blokes, played a bit of bridge – he’d had to teach them, but they’d been quite a clever bunch – and gin-rummy. John, Nick and John II had been especially loud and boastful about their exploits on the _Happy Return_ , which had sailed under Captain Hornigold. Even he had heard of Benjamin Hornigold and had greedily drunken in everything about those adventures. 

Sadly, much of it must have been exaggerated, because there just wasn’t any way they truly had battled a ten-foot tall octopus with fish-hooks. The N’Gressen had never developed space-travel in the original universe, and considering their size, water-dependency and reluctance to change, he doubted they’d done so in this one. They were also shy and peaceful and preferred singing to ship-sinking. Still, even with faked N’Gressen-battles, he’d learned quite a lot from their talks, most importantly which of the sloops in the harbour were most likely to be crewless. 

It had narrowed down to the _Marigold_ , the _Poseidon’s Gold_ and the _William_. They all had only arrived yesterday morning and their captains had promised the crew a good time in town. _”Nary a one o’em will be stayin’ on, they won’t”_ , John II had said and then preceded to giggle into his ale. He’d beaten them all at gin-rummy afterwards. 

With a groan, he now crawled away from the terrible bed and managed to get himself upright. Rubbish, all those human bones and muscles. Went all stiff and stale from lying in the wrong position, how silly a concept was that? Still, he had better things to do than moan about his aches and pains. Namely, getting back to Mary’s shack and get their first-ever pirating on the way. He was, he could admit it to himself, a little bit excited.

Not that he was a stranger to stealing ships, of course. Just never stolen one with sails. 

The storm had brought rain along with it, and when he stepped out of the tavern, a gust of disturbingly warm water washed the last remains of drowsiness away. Better than any shower could, though he did miss a cuppa to wake the gears inside his brain, too. The way up to Mary’s was easy, the wind pushing him along quite nicely so the incline was barely noticeable. Now and then, he had to duck a flying piece of cloth, one or two baskets and one unsecured pair of trousers. One poor soul would have to go starkers today, he thought while watching it flutter away towards the fort. Maybe the owner wouldn’t even notice, sleeping off the remnants of excessive drinking and company of the female kind. 

He didn’t even have to knock, since Mary, Emm, Rose and Tony were all waiting for him already. Emm was carrying a pack over her shoulder, big enough to contain all the valuables she would likely possess. She was looking around the street furtively, as if she expected someone to rush out and lock her away forever. Considering she was apparently married, and that in this time on Earth a married woman counted very close to possession, that worry might not have been undue. While Mary looked perky and manically excited and Tony was gloomily staring ahead, already displeased with the morning when it hadn’t even begun yet, Rose looked like she hadn’t slept at all. Her clothes were rumpled and her eyes rimmed red, yet she smiled her lovely smile once she spotted him and went to greet him with a kiss. Emm was holding Tony back by the hand, as if the little bugger would have said more than ‘ugh’ towards him. And he didn’t even get that much, only a very unimpressive glare. 

Really, he wondered what had crawled into that particular five-year-old’s oats to make him despise him so. 

Oh well. Couldn’t be helped now. There were plenty of other children who liked him, he wasn’t exactly dependant on Tony liking him. Rose liked him, and that was really all of the Tylers that were important. Sure, he was very much fine with Pete liking him, and was coming to terms with Jackie doing so as well. But truly, in the grand scheme of things, Rose was the only one that mattered. 

She was also the only one who would still be liking him when this little mishap came to anyone’s attention. His hope that nobody would believe Tony when he would inevitably say that he’d been to meet pirates was dwindling the longer they stayed here. More time here meant more memories and more historical facts. 

“Right. Are we done then? Let’s go.” Mary had apparently decided that she was in charge. Well – fine, then. He didn’t mind letting Mary lead here. Their real goal was still to get Tony and disappear, all the rest was cover-fire, so to speak. Though hopefully, no real fire would be met. And if the situation needed it, he could always take his rightful place among this strange band of wannabe-pirates. He never really had a problem with that, not even on this Earth, in this universe. Only Rose knew that he was usually making things up as he ran along, and if others suspected, they’d so far kept silent. Just because there were never – well. Rarely – ready-made plans inside his head didn’t mean he was clueless. He knew what he was doing, and his brain was big enough to calculate odds on various situations simultaneously. If he made a mistake, he was usually quick enough to figure out how to undo it before anyone noticed. 

His job here wasn’t the sailing. He could easily admit that sailing was not on his resume and he might be not exactly perfect at it. Maybe even bad. Perhaps. Could be, though it was rather doubtful. He was usually very good at things. Learned quickly, he did. But either way, his job here was to be the Captain. To provide the male-dominated world of a pirate-vessel with the expected and desired male figurehead the crew needed to believe in their tasks, and while Mary would probably be undoubtedly fantastic as one, a captain was only as mighty as the belief he – or she – inspired in his sailors. He knew _that_ much from his old life. 

Being a pirate-captain might come naturally for Mary – he was fairly certain she could be good at that. After all, she was ruthless enough to go her own way, no matter what obstructions were put in her path. But for the men they’d scrounged together yesterday, it would take more than a fiery head and passion. Sadly, it would take literal balls in the knickers. 

That was his job. Be the balls in Mary’s knickers. He chuckled, which, despite the rain and the gales, Rose picked up on. “What?” she yelled, but he just grinned back and shook his head. He might tell her later. For now, they had to fight against the wind to reach the harbour, duck pieces of clothing, buildings and roofs and then pick up their crew. Mary had told them to come to the harbour in the morning, making certain they’d remember payment would only come to those who would be there and sober. On the beach, he spotted them – ten men, rough and tough and so brilliantly human, with grouchy faces and long beards and scars on their skin and one even had a pet-monkey! How brilliant was that!

“Rose!” Tony squeaked. He’d seen the animal, too, and was hardly contained by Emm. “Rose, there’s a monkey!”

“I see that,” Rose smiled back at him. “But I bet it’s already scared enough from the wind. Let’s wait until you meet it, how ‘bout that?”

Reluctantly, Tony nodded and let himself be dragged along with Emm and Mary, who were looking for a lonely row-boat they would need for their plan. “Which one of those ships, Doctor? Any idea?” Rose leaned close to him and he wanted nothing more than to smell her hair and touch her all over, sink into her skin and forget the world and the limitations of it and the deficiency of his own biology. 

For a while, he’d been worried Rose would want children with him, and when that topic had reared its head, he’d been glad that Rose had been just as relieved about his lack of compatibility as he’d been of her taking his calm mask at face-value, not as the fake one he’d put on for her. In truth, he’d been terrified that it would cast a shadow on their relationship so early on. 

He certainly wouldn’t have minded to one day have one or more children of Rose run around if she’d desired them, but he’d not been – and still wasn’t – partial to them being genetically his. He’d done that before, the whole genetic-family-thing, and it hadn’t really turned out very well for him – or them. A sharp pain accompanied the reminder of his last offspring, the brilliant, radiant being called Jenny. She would have loved this, he thought with a sad smile. She would have been the first on the ship, ready to fight and ready to explore. So alive, so wonderfully brilliant. It was one of the bigger regrets in his memory, having lost her before he’d had time to get to know her at all. She would have gotten along with Rose perfectly. Probably too well, even… 

Well. Now that he thought about it, Jenny had not been _his_ child at all. _He_ didn’t have offsprings of his own, but even when he pondered that little interesting fact around in his mind, the desire to have them now wasn’t getting any stronger. Meaning: was still practically zero. 

Oh well. 

“One of those three,” he said, pointing to the three furthest from shore. “Met some nice chaps in the inn last night, they talked quite a lot and were astoundingly good at gin-rummy. Those three have come in last, which means the crews are still thirsty and would want adventures on dry land. Also, as the latest arrivals, they’re furthest from the harbour and away from watchful eyes. And being so far away means that most crew-men will stay in town rather than risk falling into the water while steering a rowboat across. Sloshed.” He grinned and Rose smirked beside him, which made him tingle inside with happiness. Her smile always made him tingle, and not always – though more than sometimes – was that a tingle that travelled down to his pants. It was just a gentle warmth inside, a feeling of ‘home’ and ‘safe’ and ‘ours’ and ‘us’ and ‘together’ and ‘forever’. Something he’d felt with the Tardis, and the Tardis only, when he’d been just one person and hadn’t met Rose yet. 

Rose was his home, and her smile was everything he needed to make the world right and wonderful when it turned upside-down. 

“Hmm. Which one’s which, can you tell?”

He squinted against the gale but couldn’t see far enough. The sloops were bobbing on the waves, up and down, up and down, and even his other self would have had trouble reading any of the names on the hulls. “Well. Just pick one, I think. We just have to convince those fellows,” he pointed to the shivering, slightly dubious-looking men that would be their crew, “that it’s ours. Or … well.” A thought struck his mind, a thought that was persistently telling him that as pirates, those pirates would probably not bat an eye at pirateering a ship. “Maybe we should just tell them what’s what. They can react accordingly and won’t be surprised if our supposed guard won’t let us get on board.”

It was, of course, Mary who made the decision. She walked – more like stalked – over to the men and stood in front of them, presenting her impressive cleavage by standing as tall as possible with her hands in her hips. “Captain,” she called and it sadly needed the nudge from Rose to make him remember that was _him_ , “how about you address our crew and introduce us all?”

Oh, well – now _that_ , he could certainly do.

****

There were quite a lot of things Rose’s Doctor struggled with. Being dependent on sleep, regular meals, showers and weather-appropriate clothes, for example. Or depending on money and bank-accounts and keeping up with the account balance to avoid crippling dept to money-hungry bankers. He particularly struggled with those, which was why he’d given Rose complete authorization about his funds and kept his own hands far away from it if possible. Some women from work had been astonished and enamoured with the complete trust the Doctor showed her, but the truth was that he was plain rubbish at such mundane, human things and had decided that before he brought himself, Rose and her whole family down, he’d better stop caring about such things at all.

The Doctor was also very much rubbish at keeping up with social norms, knew nothing about fashion and current political or social affairs and had no dress-sense whatsoever. In that regard, he was even worse than his Time Lord counterpart, as Rose’s Doctor just wanted to wear things that were comfortable and would let him stand out. Which usually led to her mom telling him exactly what to wear whenever there was an important function that required his presence as part of the family, for otherwise he would appear in bright green trousers, a black t-shirt with a rainbow on the back and a farting unicorn on the front, bright-pink converse and a lumberjack-style checkered flannel-shirt. Yes, it had happened. He’d also that night tried his hands at using make-up, and his fingernails had sported every colour in Rose’s nailpolish-collection. Some of them had been on one and the same fingernail. While he’d certainly drawn attention, which he’d delighted in, it hadn’t exactly been what Jackie had meant when she’d told him to ‘dress sharp’. 

Personally, Rose had really liked him with eye-liner, and for _her_ , that night had been a huge success. Not only had her diaphragm gotten a great workout from the laughter she couldn’t contain, she’d had fantastic sex that night. For her parents’ sake, Rose had waited until they’d gotten to their own flat, but it had been a close call. He’d looked _fantastic_ and seeing him preen and walk the room like a peacock during mating-season while at the same time playing most everyone in the room daftly for a fool had been hugely enticing. Rarely had this version of the Doctor displayed such confidence and balls since arriving in Pete’s World, and she mourned the loss of her proud peacock when they went to Vitex-parties nowadays. 

Maybe she was wrong, and he had in fact tremendous dress-sense. 

Either way, while the part-human Doctor had his deficits compared to normal, boring humans and maybe compared to the Time Lord, if she dared draw any, there was one thing he could truly sparkle at: he really knew how to play an audience and draw crowds to his side. He’d always been amazing at it and his abilities in that regard hadn’t at all suffered from his transformation. 

Now, on the beach, right in front of the approaching storm, shouting against the wind and the sounds of the waves and the banging of that one annoyingly broken shed, he stood in front of ten pirates and told them about their fortunes, about a bright and fantastic future they could all have and achieve. Of freedom on the sea, of adventures and marvels of worlds unknown, of dangers surpassed together and bonds formed between them. While Rose could spot some distracting quotes from movies, plays and even comic-books here and there, the pirates hung on every word. He stood and strode in front of this group of grizzled, hardened men and railed them up into a group of gob-smacked, bright-eyed sailors who would have boarded a ship to sail it to the moon if he asked them to.

Even Mary, suspicious and flint-eyed as she was, had softened her features into ones of wonder and amazement, and Rose thought she could see a tiny smile at the corner of her mouth. Emm was captivated, but she’d been easier to handle anyway. Tony… well. Tony was clearly bored. But he was five, and as he’d once said ‘Why are adults always talking so much?’. 

As the Doctor stopped and turned his eyes on his new crew, everyone on the beach cheered and clapped and quickly thereafter started to look for a suitable rowboat that would carry all of them. One, a tall, wide man with short hair and skin the colour of espresso, stepped towards the Doctor to point to one of the ships. Next to him, the Doctor looked frail and tiny. Rose drew nearer to listen, and just heard the last part of the words. 

“Bound to be easiest. Most far away, she is, an’ I know’s only Matthew on board. He’s a bit slow, if you get ma drift, Captain, so would be easiest.”

The Doctor scratched his chin absentmindedly. “He won’t be too slow to row back to shore, will he? I don’t want Matthew to drown on the way back.”

“Naw,” the man guffawed. “He’s a reg’lar lover, if ya get ma drift, Captain. Lost at dice, he did, so’s his turn on guard when he’s so much more interested in womenfolk. If ya catch ma drift, Captain.”

“I do, Maurice,” the Doctor grinned. “I certainly do. Well – that’s decided then. Rose, did you hear?” Apparently, her cover as ‘Ross’ was now over. Just as well – she’d been rubbish at speaking in a low timbre instead of in her own voice. “We’ll soon be sailing on the _William_! Isn’t that brilliant?”

“ _William_? Isn’t that a bit of a daft name for a ship?” she teased. “I mean… Why not name her… I don’t know. _Jack_?”

Maurice looked at her with a frown. “’cus her name’s _William_ , Miss. Not _’Jack_ ’. Can’t go ‘round naming ships diff’rently than their names. ‘s bad luck, it is, if ya catch ma drift.”

Rose suppressed a chuckle and she nodded earnestly at the man. “I do, but thank you for the advice. _William_ it is, then. Oh look, Captain,” she bumped the Doctor’s side when he was distracted by watching Mary chat with two of their new pirates. “Looks like our transport has been procured.” Four crewmen waved from some distance away, standing close to a rather large boat that was bobbing on the water, tied to a wooden pontoon that reached quite a way into the water. 

“Well, what a lovely little boat that is. I feel very confident in its sturdiness,” she muttered as they got nearer and she could see the worn sides and mismatched oars. It’s name, brightly painted on the front, was _Hopeful Puffin_. Yes. It really inspired confidence. Looking back, she spotted Tony, still holding Emm’s hand and looking a bit faint now that it was becoming clear they would have to actually go out on the water in this weather. “Tony,” she called. “Do you want to hold my hand?” 

He nodded and dashed towards her, and for a bright moment, Rose, Tony and the Doctor were so close to each other that they could have made the jump. The exact second it registered in her mind, though, Mary popped between Rose and the Doctor and grabbed his arm, more or less pulling him towards the boat. “Oh, but the captain needs to be the first on the boat, isn’t that right, men?” she smirked and got some reluctant nods and ‘aye’s from the crew. 

Damn, that woman was a huge lot shaper that Rose had given her credit for. It might get a lot more interesting the longer they had to be on a ship together. 

The Doctor was unceremoniously pushed towards the little bobbing vessel, which might have been done to show him up. Sad for Mary, though, he was nimble as a cat and surefooted as a donkey – his own words, which Rose would forever quote back to him – and he simply stood with his feet apart and waited for the next one in. 

Emm and Mary were the last ones, with Emm holding on to Tony and lowering him inside into Rose’s arms when it was his turn. Tony clung to her like a limpet and refused to let go of Rose, which meant that she wouldn’t be able to sit with the Doctor on this trip. She was already regretting just about every decision they’d made up to now, and they hadn’t even moved from the harbour. The waves where bound to get higher farther out, and her stomach was certainly not happy about the thought. “Are you feeling alright, Tony?” she asked to distract herself, and while a bit pale, Tony nodded and looked around between all the smelly men squished closely together in the _Hopeful Puffin_. 

“Where’re we going, Rose?” he whispered in her ear, maybe a little afraid but mostly curious. Well. She had a feeling Tony Tyler would turn out highly interesting for her parents. 

“We’re pretending to be pirates for a bit,” she whispered to him. “Emm and Mary are women-pirates and those fellows will help us sail the ship.”

“Are you a pirate, too?” He looked towards the front of the boat – was that stern? Or bow? Did it matter, really? – glancing at the Doctor who was talking animatedly to one of the crew-members. It was the one with the monkey, Rose noted. “Is he also a pirate?”

She nodded and shook herself out of the small, wistful smile that had stolen onto her face while she was watching her Doctor be so completely in his element. “Yes, he is. He’s the captain.”

That got a pout. “Why’s he gonna be the captain? Why can’t I be the captain? I’m Tony Tyler, I should be the captain. ‘Least I got a name.”

“Well,” she murmured into his ear and settled him closer on her lap. “You might have a name, but he’s just really better at being a captain than you are, Brother-my-Brother.” He giggled at the nickname. “Trust me, Tony. The Doctor will be the finest pirate-captain ever, and you and I will be great pirates as well. Tony the pirate and Rose the pirate. And all of those around us will be great pirates as well. It’s going to be a fantastic adventure!”

“Hmpf,” Tony said, but he seemed pacified. Sadly, that was the moment they left the relative calm of the harbour-area and went out to the sea to reach their new ship, and Rose’s stomach was taking over all her attention from then on. 

She was distantly aware that Emm was sick over the side, much to the amusement of some of the men until they met Mary’s fierce glower, and that the Doctor, of course, was looking perky and fine as ever. 

_The world can be so unfair_ , Rose thought when Tony suddenly moaned and puked all over her trousers. _Miserably, bloody, completely, utterly unfair._


	9. Chapter 9

He heard the commotion and guffaws from behind him and turned his eyes away from the ship they were slowly getting closer to. Rose was holding Tony over the side of the boat where the little Tyler puked up quite a lot of things, from the look of it. And Rose wasn’t looking too rosy, either. More like pale and slightly green. 

He’d tolerated the chuckles over Emm having problems with her own equilibrium sense because Mary was fierce enough and determined to force the men into submission, or at the very least into acknowledging her existence and her place on the crew, but Rose had no such champion and she needed to be accepted by the men. In their own century, she wouldn’t need his help; would rather refuse it if he offered, even. But here, she was a woman, and lighter and smaller than Mary with her impressive height. Did the same rules apply here? 

_Bloody idiot_ , he chastised himself. Hadn’t Rose been just wonderful alone against werewolves, Sycorax and even Daleks? Hadn’t she jumped universes with a big cannon to save her world, only to confront even more Daleks on top of a love-sick Time Lord with abandonment issues? She wouldn’t need him defend her, but a bit of distraction during a time of weakness would surely not be amiss. “Oi, looks like we’re getting close enough to be seen. Maurice, does What’s-his-name know you?”

“Matthew, Capt’n. An’ he does. Want me to call out to ‘im?” 

A particularly violent gale tore his answer away and nearly toppled him overboard. Only the quick reflex of the grizzled old man called Arthur, who had a monkey on his shoulder, kept him on, and he thanked him for it. “No, I don’t think that’s the best idea,” he answered Maurice. “I think I have a different one…” 

Rose had perked up, probably ready to jump after him if he’d fallen overboard. She had a tendency to jump after Doctors, so it just stood to reason that she would’ve. Now, she met his eyes and when he winked, she grinned devilishly in agreement. This would be fun. 

Because of the sounds of the wind, it was easy to remain unspotted in the _Hopeful Puffin_. The sky had by now turned into a very dark purplish blue, about the colour of an angry bruise or a black eye after three days. He’d know that particular shade everywhere, having had to wash his face with that spectacular colour-spectrum for miserable weeks after that crack in the cranium. Unconsciously, he touched the wiry stubble on his head while the crew kept the boat alongside the _William_ through excellent use of the oars and by using the currents and waves to their advantage. He might have picked a passable band of pirates, he thought. Maybe his and Mary’s screening-process had turned up a good crew after all. 

“Get us closer to the anchor,” he commanded the men, who followed without question. Oh, this was brilliant, his own crew!

Once right beside the anchor-rope, he looked up at the ship that was soon to be theirs. The _William_ was a Bermuda sloop, of course currently with her sails pulled down. She had one single mast and, if he read all those straps and ropes and wooden extensions right, would sport three headsails and one gaff-rigged main sail. Gaff-sail? Was that the right name? Anyway, lots and lots of sails, currently fastened to not get ripped from the wind. 

“Rose?”

She smirked and nodded. “Not a problem, Mon Capitan.” Confidently, she moved to the side of the boat that was touching the _William_ , close to the anchor’s rope. Some of the men looked at her strangely, Emm was trying to contain her stomach-contents and Mary was looking suspicious, as per usual. With a leap, Rose grabbed the anchor’s rope and swung her leg up so she was hanging from the rope like a sloth, except she kept bouncing and slipping. For a moment, he held his breath until she was truly secure and started climbing upwards. 

“Blimey, never seen any’o that before,” Arhur muttered, apparently in awe of Rose’s nimbleness. He certainly agreed on the aweing. Once on board, she would disable the guard and toss them the Jacob’s ladder so everyone could get up and out of this bobbing, rather uncomfortable rowboat. 

It didn’t take long for her head to pop up over the railing and give him the thumbs-up sign. After, Rose threw them the ladder and a rope to tie the boat to the ship and prevent it from drifting off, and now all they had to do was get up, which would be a cakewalk for him, easy for most of the sailors, more than likely fine for Mary, probably a bit tricky for Emm and … rather interesting for Tony. The ship’s hull wasn’t high, but with the waves bopping the two vessels up and down, things could get a bit harrowing for a five-year-old, he supposed.

“I’ll go first!” Mary demanded and pushed her way to the front. One of the men, maybe he was called Richard or maybe Edgar – probably John – complained and grabbed her bum, which earned him a sharp slap to the cheek. “Hands off, you barnacle-crusted old shallop. Ya can get on board just fine after me, ya can.” She hoisted herself up expertly and was halfway up the ladder when a gale got the _William_ dancing a jig. Mary held on but got her hands slammed against the hull, which elicit a sharp curse until she could contain herself again and wait out until she could anticipate the ship’s movements and get back to climbing. Down in the little boat, the sailors cursed when they fell all over; one of them – George? Michael? Maybe Sven? – nearly fell out but Arthur grabbed him by the collar and threw him back down where he stayed safe. Emm was clinging to the railing and to Tony, more or less safe as long as she stayed sitting. 

Once Mary had disappeared over the edge of their new ship, the slim-limbed John climbed up and then he called Emm forward because he wanted her up so she wouldn’t be alone to sit among the rough men. Not that he didn’t trust them… but he didn’t really trust them. 

“Have you ever climbed one of these?” he asked Emm, who still held Tony by the hand. She shook her head. “So better if you go, then I’ll get Tony up and you and Rose can help him over the railing, yes?” It wasn’t a question, and luckily Emm was smart enough to understand what it really was. She nodded and grabbed the ladder, smiling gracefully when Maurice helped her get a good grip by holding it steady for her. She made her way up fine – a lot slower than Mary and with a bit of a wobble here and there, but she managed. 

Now came the interesting part. “Tony,” he said, and watched his maybe-sortof-brother-in-law-in-a-way frown and back away a little bit. “C’mon, you’ll be fine,” he smiled. “Look, Rose is up there and nothing can go wrong. Just a wee bit of a climb, really, certainly nothing a man of Tyler-stock would have a problem with. You’ll be fine.” He tried to sound encouraging, but by the looks of it, Tony was anything but impressed. 

“What’s the holdup?” One of the men asked. “If the lad’s too scared, mabby better to leave ‘im at shore, aye?” When he glared at the person – James, or whatshisname – the man backed down but it strengthened his resolve to not leave Tony on the boat alone with those sailors. They’d probably just hoist him over their shoulder, but what if they didn’t? 

Sighing, he motioned to the men to precede him and sat down next to Tony. “Look,” he said. “If you want, I can get Rose to come back down and help you. But it would certainly be quicker, and we’d be away from this bobbing little boat if you climbed by yourself. I would be right behind you; nothing will happen to you. I promise, nothing at all.” 

Tony was still sceptical, and if he hadn’t already known that the boy had serious issues with him, he’d be quite offended. As it was, he just sat quietly and watched the burly men climb the ladder like it was their usual form of locomotion. Who knew, maybe it was. The little monkey squirreled – or rather, monkeyed – up the ladder swiftly and cackled once it arrived.

He nudged Tony. “See? The monkey’s already up there. Don’t you want to see it? Maybe you could pet it, if you ask nicely.”

Only three of the pirates remained, and he still didn’t trust them enough to be the last on the boat. Even though none of them had been particularly leery towards the women, leaving all ten of them on board with Rose, Mary and Emm didn’t sit well with him. Rose could defend herself, and supposedly Emm and Mary had something up their sleeves, too – something sharp, he reckoned – but still… ten to three wasn’t exactly good odds. Not that he was that much of a fighter. Rose had encouraged him to pick up aikido – Earth version – because, as she’d said, it was the perfect sport for him. She’d been right, as he’d already realized that his former skills had completely vanished after his regeneration, and he quite liked learning again how to throw people over his shoulder. But he was under no illusion that he’d be rubbish in an actual fight with actual pirates, when he didn’t even have a sword. Still. It would be so much easier to cut the rope on a rowboat in a storm and set sails than get rid of the captain later. 

Stood to reason that he’d rather not be the last one remaining in the boat.

“Fine,” Tony decided with a sudden nod. “But you’ll catch me if I fall, yes?”

“Of course!” he beamed. “It’ll be just a short climb; someone’ll be pulling you up in no time! Let’s go, mon frère.” He held out his hand, which Tony refused to take, and then followed the boy to the ladder. He hoisted him up a little, so he could reach the rung and then stepped on the lowest rung right behind Tony. It was very wobbly and shaky, and he felt Tony gasp and stiffen.

“You’re doing great. Let’s go, up one arm – yes, perfect! – and now the next. And one foot – a bit higher… yes, now you have it! And now push, I’m right behind you.”

Thanking the stars for his long limbs and lanky body, he built a sort of cage around Tony and followed the slow, painfully slow progress up. At one time, after a particularly strong gale, the boy had frozen and it had taken quite a while until he’d been able to unclasp his hand and continue. Even Rose’s encouraging words hadn’t helped and they’d both hung there and been thrown about a little for oh… maybe three or five minutes? 

The moaning and complaints from down below hadn’t at all helped. But now, finally, the two of them were up on deck and Rose was hugging her brother who had jumped into her arms like the little monkey had jumped on its owner’s shoulder. 

When all men were on deck, he clapped his hands as he took in the ship’s layout and design. “Alright! Now … let’s set sails and off we go!”

All the pirates and Mary and Emm were staring at him, blinking like he’d just quoted Einstein’s theory of relativity to them, or recited Pi to the twenty-seventh digit. 

“What?”


	10. Chapter 10

To the Doctor’s dismay, they couldn’t possibly sail away in the storm. The gales and the wind and the rain had turned into furiously howling, thrashing forces that swayed the _William_ like a cork in a flushing toilet and made everyone quite green around the nose. 

Everyone despite the Doctor, of course. Because apparently, the whatnot-metacrisis came with pre-installed sea-legs. World? Unfair. Even their new companions looked a little unsettled, some of them had been spotted crossing themselves after a particularly violent wind.

Then again, Rose thought while she watched the Doctor stand tall on deck with his feet placed wide, staring into the wind and letting his belt-scarf flutter, he probably got them from the way his Tardis used to jump and turn and tumble through the Vortex. 

“He’s quite handsome, your husband.” Mary had sidled up to her, coming from behind where she and Emm had made home in one of the two cabins. The rest of the crew would sleep down below deck in the hammocks that hung from the beams. Rose didn’t envy them for that dark, tight space, but supposed they were used to such accommodations. None of them had complained or even looked surprised or dismayed. 

Tony wanted a hammock for himself, and they had found one to hang into the cabin he shared with the two barmaids. Mary and Emm had offered Rose two choices, making it quite clear that the situation hadn’t yet turned out to their satisfaction and until it did, Tony, Rose and the Doctor would be kept separate. At least in a way that never let all of them connect physically at the same time. One choice was that Rose got to sleep in the cabin with them and Tony, the other that she got to sleep in the other cabin with the Doctor. There was probably the third option of Tony sharing the cabin with the Doctor, but that was rather unlikely, even after he’d been so very good with her brother on the Jacob’s ladder. Sadly, Tony hadn’t seen it the same and was still glaring at him whenever possible. So – two options. 

“Yes,” she answered, never leaving her eyes off the Doctor. Or rather, the Captain, as he was now titled. He looked the part, really smashing and cocky and colourful and bright. “That he is. My husband.” 

Rose felt Mary tense beside her and knew she’d gotten her point exactly. The technicalities of their relationship were none of Mary’s business, but for all intents and purposes, the Doctor was hers and she was his. This big-boobed extortionist would be well-advised to keep her hands off him. Rose left her standing and walked over to him, slipping her hand around his waist. He leaned into the touch immediately, seeking comfort and reassurance and maybe simply contact from her like he always did. It was thrilling, still, even nearly two years after meeting this him, that he was craving touches so much. Maybe the Time Lord would have been the same, as frantically drinking every instance of contact and touch and love and caress as her Doctor did. Maybe he would have shed the distance he’d always kept between them if she’d stayed with him, just so he could make the very best out of the time they would be able to share. 

But that, she thought with a little bit of mourning, would forever stay a mystery. She would never know and she wouldn’t ask her Doctor about it. It would be pointless. 

“Have you found a place to sleep?” He asked her now, and Rose leaned into his side and smiled into his shirt. Her stomach was still lurching from the waves, but it was his voice and smell and feel right next to her that made her weak-kneed and a little soft. Once the storm was done, she could be tough Agent Tyler again, but right now she wanted to be Rose. Just Rose. 

“Oh yes.” In this exact moment, she’d decided where she would sleep. “And I’d really like to show it to you, mon Capitan.” She took his hand and tugged lightly, and his eyes grew wide. 

“Now?” he squeaked and coughed, then repeated with a less ridiculous voice. “Now? The men are…”

“Doctor. There’s nothing for us to do. We can’t sail away; we can’t do anything besides wait out the storm and the guys won’t have a reason to disturb us. Tony is with Emm, playing with Arthur’s monkey and we’ve got a bit of time. I missed you last night,” she said, smiling up at him through her lashes and putting her tongue between her teeth.

She knew he couldn’t resist that look, and just like she’d anticipated, his eyes turned impossibly darker. “Why, Miss Tyler. I have the feeling you’re trying to seduce me.”

“Is it working?” She kept tugging and he followed, and when he just nodded instead of finding words to reply, she laughed. Mary was still at the railing, scowling when they marched past. “We’ll be in the cabin for a bit,” Rose told her, “see that we’re not disturbed, will you?”

****

Sadly, the planned moment in the captain’s cabin turned out to be nothing but enthusiastic snogging. Not that there was anything _wrong_ with enthusiastic snogging, or even anything _just_ in the way they did it. But it wasn’t what she’d hoped for. The state of the cabin was as much to blame as the situation they were in, as it smelled very male and quite dusty, maybe a bit mouldy even, and the bed was narrow and encased in a bed-box which would certainly make sharing it very painful. The captain of this ship must have also been quite small – there was no way the Doctor would be able to stretch out in this.

After the snogging and after looking mournfully at the insufficient sleeping-possibilities, he’d bounced over to the captain’s table and had started to read the logs and maps and tinker with the tools of the sailing-trade. There was a surprising amount of paper in the table’s drawers, which turned out to be cargo-lists, crew-rosters and letters. 

“Oh, this is brilliant, Rose! Do you know what this is?” She looked over. 

“A sextant, I’d imagine.” The slightly disappointed look on his face made her inner child crow in glee. It was fun, taking the wind out of his sails, though also a little insulting that he’d think she wouldn’t know such basic things like a _sextant_. Not that she knew how to work one, but she was hoping he did. “Can you operate it?” 

“Sure!” He proclaimed, then nearly toppled into her when a large wave hit the _William_ and made it weave and dance. “Of course, not right now I don’t. And look, these are sea-maps, look! We can plot a course once we’re out of here, and then we sail to … I don’t know, Jamaica or something and at one point in that time, we will probably get a chance to grab Tony and finally go back home.”

Rose smiled, a little wistfully. He was right, of course he was. Just… she’d been having fun here; this was a proper adventure, at least since Tony had been found. She hadn’t had one of these in ages; pure, unadulterated fun without the weight of the universe on her shoulders and nearly no consequences apart of course from possibly dying. She’d really been looking forward to this, and now they had to go back as soon as possible. 

The thought of Tony gave her a sharp kick against the part of her that apparently housed her conscience. _Rose, he’s five! It’s one thing to want to bounce around in history, quite another when you have your barely-in-kindergarten-brother tagging along! Show some responsibility, you’re not alone in this world!_ , a voice that sounded suspiciously like her mother scolded her. It was right, too. Tony would need to go back home, and soon. This was so far a fun adventure, and maybe he would even enjoy it. But once they went out to sea, all sorts of things could happen. They were, after all, on a ship with ten hard-boiled sailors and two dubious barmaids who had already shown that they would do a lot to make the Doctor and her keep their promise. 

Speak of the devil… “Rose! Rosie! Roooooose! ROSE!!!”

“Ah, it seems your presence is wanted elsewhere, Mylady.” The Doctor smiled at her and she forced a grin. “Let’s see what he wants, yes?”

****

Shortly after Emm got Rose with Tony at her hand, one of the men came knocking at his door. It was one of the John’s, of which there were two. They differed in age quite a lot, so he decided to call them Old John and Young John in his head, and hoped he wouldn’t say that out loud. Apparently, that would be rude.

He arranged for Matthew to be set out in the _Hopeful Puffin_ once they had set sail and were on their way to open water. And he learned that for all things ‘ship’, like telling people what to do and where to stand and when to run and how high to jump, George Fetherston would be his man. His job-title was apparently ‘master’, but there was just no way he’d call him that. ‘George’ would have to do.

When Old John left, he nearly collided with Arthur, who had obtained his monkey from Tony and told him that Mary had asked for him. ‘Demanded’ was probably more to the point, if the uncomfortable expression on Arthur’s face was any indication. 

He found her standing at the starboard-railing, looking out to the dim lights of Nassau. She turned when he approached, and for a second he thought there was a fleeting glimpse of something apart from contempt. “You asked for me?”

“I did. What are your plans, now that you have your ship?”

Annoyance rose, like bile in his throat. He tampered it down a little but it probably slipped through a bit. “First of all, my plans are none of your business. I didn’t want a ship in the first place – you rather forced our hand here. So the question should be: what are _your_ plans now that you have a ship?”

Scowling, Mary looked back towards the shore. “I just wanted to get away. My plans aren’t set, apart from getting out of that town. I’d gather at one point, we’ll have to catch some bounty, or those men you acquired will raise a stink.” Her smirk turned her handsome features into an ugly mask. Snide didn’t suit her, and he suspected her life had hardened her so she’d be able to survive. And while that was admirable and he really appreciated strong, beautiful characters like hers, it was very inconvenient to be on the wrong side of her strength. 

“Look,” he started. “Let’s be honest here. You want out – I want out. I just want to get off this ship with Rose and Tony, and I know you know as much. So stop pretending, and set some lines, yes?” Mary reluctantly nodded. “Good. How far do you need us to take you and Emm? At what point do you think you can let this hostage-situation go to feel secure? Because I will take you to that point, but it would be much easier if I knew in advance what your expectations are of us. ‘just get us out’ has already happened, and apparently that wasn’t enough for you. So… what?”

Mary turned and watched the waves dance and crash against the hull of the _William_. She bit her lip and took a deep breath, then blinked and turned back towards him. “I’ll have to talk to Emm. We can’t … I can’t make a decision without her. So – I’ll let you know.”

“Soon,” he demanded and got a sharp nod of agreement from her. He felt the urgent desire to check their bargaining material before Mary would get her web spun around the crew. There was the distinct possibility that he didn’t trust her at all.

****

Rose found the Doctor in the storeroom of the ship, counting bales and inspecting barrels. Down here, the swaying was even worse than up on deck, but she fought her stomach into compliance and joined him. “What are you doing?”

“Seeing what we’ve got. Apparently, the _William_ had a good run with some wine and fancy materials, if the manifest is to be believed. And I want to know how well we can pay our crew before they decide to mutiny.”

She bit her lips as her eyes swept over the contents of the cargo bay. “Is that something we should worry about?”

The Doctor looked up from his list and gave her a big grin. “Naww, it’ll be fine. There’s yet enough to keep them happy for a while. Alcohol will sell well, and the cloth is truly well-made. Might even be silk, though I can’t be sure without opening them all the way. I’d never get them fixed up like this again if I do,” he added, a bit sadly. Still, Rose didn’t quite believe his proclamation – if he mentioned a mutiny, it meant he had thought about it. And he usually didn’t think about things that were completely out of the expected. 

“Right. So… who should I keep a closer eye on? The barmaids or the pirates?”

It got a grimace out of him, one she didn’t really like too much. “I talked to Mary; told her we need a bit of a pointer about when we can expect them to let us leave. I’m not sure I can trust her fully, though,” he muttered, and Rose felt a twist in her heart. The Doctor used to be so confident and trusting when it came to bargains, even with the worst kind of people. Hearing that he was doubting Mary’s sincerity was a sharp reminder that things had fundamentally changed in him, and not just his organs and genetics. Maybe it was the knowledge that he couldn’t just jump back in time and fix things, but then again, the Time Lord hadn’t truly done that anyway. So it might just be his own vulnerability and the added pressure of taking care of his own body on top of trying to protect hers – and everyone else’s. 

His desire to protect everyone, his wish to find solutions that wouldn’t leave anyone dead was one of the things she’d fallen for first. He was a fundamentally _good_ person, even when he failed now and again. The fact that he mourned every loss and took it to heart was, for Rose, proof that he valued life above anything else. Maybe not Daleks, but that was their own fault. He might be a tad overbearing – well, more than a tad – and arrogant once in a while, with his tendency to make decisions on behalf of people well capable of making their own, but he never did it to cause harm. Even if it rubbed the wrong way, his protectiveness towards her had always sprung from love and fondness. It had carried over into her Doctor, and they’d had to put in some ground-rules once Rose had decided to go back to working with Torchwood. She’d told him that he couldn’t always take her choices away, that he needed to trust her judgment or _she_ couldn’t trust her own judgement and it would cause her to hesitate when most inconvenient or dangerous. She’d told him she didn’t want him to ever send her out of danger, or trick her into leaving a dangerous moment, just so she would be out of harm’s way. Like he’d done with the dimension-jumping button, or when he’d sent her home from Satellite Five. She wouldn’t stand for those kinds of things anymore, and if he’d do them anyway it would show her that he couldn’t respect her, her choices and her own mind fully.

She’d known it had hit him low, and it had taken a while for him to mull it over. He’d frowned and hemmed and hawed, and then he’d put out his own offer. _‘I’ll never tell you how to do your job, or trick you or keep you out of the way of danger just because the thought of you getting hurt scares me,’_ he’d said, _‘And it does. It scares me half to death. But I swear I won’t do that, but only if you promise me that when I_ do _tell you to leave somewhere, you’ll do it without argument.’_

It had been her turn to think things through, but in the end, she’d taken the deal. It wasn’t that different from putting herself under the command of her boss at Torchwood, after all; referring to someone’s better judgement and their ability to see more than just the moment in front of them was par for the course. The Doctor _did_ have more experience than anyone, and if he promised her he’d not use that out of basic macho-bullshit-reasons, she could very well promise to listen to his voice of experience. That night, in bed, after some very satisfying sex, he’d held her tight and whispered into the back of her neck how much the thought of losing her scared him, and how much he loved her and how proud he was of her for becoming the person she was now. Rose hadn’t turned, just flattened out his hand and pressed it to her heart, trying to think really hard at him how she felt exactly the same. Maybe one day she’d have to actually say it out loud, but she thought he had gotten the right idea. 

Their arrangement had certainly turned her work-life-balance for the better. The Doctor had stopped being overly nosy about her day, had stopped asking about every little thing at Torchwood and waited for her to tell him about important bits. She, in turn, had started to do just that. Because he was still the best source for everything alien, even if he refused to ever join the official ranks. It didn’t matter, he kept saying, because as long as Rose worked there and as long as Pete was one of the bosses, he would always help when needed. They didn’t need to pay him for that. 

She shook herself out of her memories. “The pirates, then?” 

“I really don’t know.” And he looked so frustrated by the fact that he didn’t that Rose just had to kiss him, just so he would stop looking so sad. 

“We’ll just keep an eye on all of them. Don’t worry, it’s not the first time we’re in untrustworthy company, right?”


	11. Chapter 11

To Rose’s immense surprise, the theft of a whole bloody ship went without a hitch. They set Matthew out in the _Hopeful Puffin_ , with him cursing a blue streak so much that Rose felt herself blush and wondered how long her mom would be angry at her for letting Tony hear all that, or how long Pete would laugh once the boy repeated the words. Then, they lifted the anchor and carefully steered away from Nassau, the Doctor keeping an eye out all the time for the magistrate’s boats or small cutters to come ask them what the hell they were doing. 

Luckily, nobody came. Possibly, Rose thought, that was due to the high waves still rocking their vessel and the angry sky, or even because of the damage to the port and the houses in Nassau she could see. 

Mary was standing on the bridge, watching the man at the helm go about his work. The man – not Maurice… Elwood? No, that was one of the Blues Brothers. Elmar? Elrond? Bloody hell, she couldn’t remember his name! Elton, maybe – was clearly a little flustered by her scrutiny. Rose wasn’t quite sure if it was because of Mary’s impressive stature and attractiveness or because she was a woman and shouldn’t be interested in steering a ship. 

Noah! That was his name. To be fair, he did look a bit like he could be named ‘Elrond’.

She grinned, imagining a planet that was like Middle Earth and continued to look over the ship. Tony was with Emm, observing the sailors up in the rafters. He seemed to have forgotten his fear and there was no sign of him wanting to get home. Good. Because it might be still a while until he could be back, and the more fun he had along the way, the less likely he’d develop some sort of time-travel-trauma. Though a traitorous little voice in her head whispered that maybe that would be a good thing, would keep him from ever wanting to go along with them again. 

She snuffed the voice and tried to make sense of all the activity on the _William_ to figure out whose job was what and how the hierarchy worked here. Apparently, the middle-aged, stocky man called George was in command of the men on deck, throwing around orders and shouting abuse to his men while Maurice had claimed the kitchen – galley – as his domain. One of the younger men, Thomas, hardly more than a kid, really lanky and tall, had been designated as kitchen-boy. She’d seen him earlier, counting the supplies and the stock of food they had. It would probably be prudent to find out how much they had to eat so she and the Doctor would be able to guess at the best stop. It would provide opportunity for them to get Tony and finally leave, and after that, plan their next trip a little better. 

Arthur with his monkey was working in the rafters, astonishingly sure-footed at his age. Maybe he wasn’t as old as he looked. Every one of the men had a job, and she couldn’t make out all of them, and couldn’t remember everyone’s name. Old John and Young John and George she would recognize, as well as Maurice and the lanky Thomas. And Noah and … well. That was it, wasn’t it?

The ship – a sloop, the Doctor had said – had surprised her, even though after Nassau, nothing ‘pirate-reality’ should have. It was much smaller than she’d anticipated, maybe eight meters long – that would be about twenty-seven feet – and with a long bowsprit and a lot of ropes. No, seriously – a heaping lot of ropes. Now that they were out of the Nassau-area, George gave a command she didn’t quite catch and the men hustled to get the sails up. There were a lot of them. The _William_ had only one mast – considering that most of the ships she’d seen had only one, that shouldn’t have been as startling – and three triangular sails spanned behind each other from the bowsprit to the top of the mast. The main-sail had a gaff, making it not-quite triangular but close enough to forgo the need for the large top-riggings a square sail would need. It also had a smaller topsail. Rose had no idea whatsoever about the workings and construction of sails, but from the pleased look on George’s face she gathered that their vessel was sufficient and quite fast. 

Good. The last thing they needed was a chase across the ocean. 

“Enjoying the view, Ma’am?” Noah had approached and was standing at a polite distance. He was maybe in his early thirties, though it was possible he was younger, and his face was handsome and mildly clean. A startling scar dissected his left eyebrow and went over his forehead towards his hairline, where it cut a line of missing hair and gave him a rather roguish look. His eyes, she noticed, were the blue of her first Doctor, the Northern one. “It’s really something.” She smiled at him and turned back towards the horizon. “I admit, I’m not used to much sailing. So this is something rather new to me. I have no idea what all these things on the ship are for…”

“I could teach you, if you like?” Rose turned back just in time to see him blush. “I mean… if … that is, my shift will be over soon, and…” 

“That’s really kind. Noah, right?” He nodded and blushed even harder, and she doubted his age was anything above twenty. “I’d appreciate it, yes. Thank you.”

“If… I hope the Captain won’t mind?” 

“Oh, no. I don’t think he would. But just to make that clear – I’m not interested in anything more than learning things about the ship, yes?” Noah nodded eagerly, and she wondered if he truly understood what she’d said. But did that matter? They were going to leave first chance they got, and Noah would stay behind. Fact of life, fact of time-travelling: you leave, the others stay. In a way, it summoned up the Doctor quite well, she thought. And while it had hurt to see him leave – well, rather _not_ see him leave – with distance she’d come to understand. 

Leaving was easier than being left behind. Because even if the Time Lord had said that humans withered and died and he didn’t want to watch that and he’d rather keep his companions alive and healthy once he left them, she thought that there was something else about that whole human-lifespan-thing that would terrify a being as old and close to immortal as a Time Lord. Not just watching the ones you hold dear die… the process of aging was undeniably hard on humans. They got wrinkles and their hair turned grey or fell out, and the bones ached and the joints didn’t work anymore and in the end, every movement hurt. And that wasn’t even taking into account the possible dementia and losing their minds, forgetting their surroundings and forgetting the Doctor and what he meant to them. 

One of the neighbours from the Estate had had dementia. Old Mrs Rottham had been looked after by her daughter, and more often than not had Rose seen that daughter come out of the flat crying. Her mom had asked her in for tea once or twice, just so she could talk to someone, and Young Mrs Rottham had talked about how her mother didn’t recognize her anymore, how she kept insisting her own daughter was a stranger, how she accused her of stealing from her and all sorts of things that had wrenched the poor woman’s heart. 

If you were at the same age, maybe withering along with your lover, that would be hard enough. But staying young and healthy and agile and bouncy while your loved one was bed-bound? She couldn’t imagine being old and tied to her own room because of her health, see the Doctor, young and fresh, bounce around the universe and _not_ start feeling resentful. 

No. From a distance, she could understand that being in love with a human was less straightforward to a Time Lord than it would be for a human. She was still sad that he hadn’t been able to tell her in a way she’d understand, though maybe leaving her his human-bodied counterpart might have been his very strange way of doing just that. No, wait. 

She wasn’t sad. Make that furious! 

Not really listening to Noah’s happy explanations, she sought out her Doctor and found him standing close to Mary once more. He didn’t look particularly happy, and neither did Mary, and she followed his line of sight towards Emm and Tony, who was learning knots from one of the Johns. With a kind smile and a polite excuse, she extricated herself from Noah and went up to the two, taking her place by the Doctor’s side, offering her hand. He took it without hesitation. 

“Mary here said she’d talked with her friend, and they would let us take Tony and leave once we reach a new harbour. Thing is,” he looked quite cross, and Mary had the sense to take a step back from him, “thing is, she said we’d need a bounty to even pay our way into a good trading town. She said she knows enough about the routes of trading-ships from her work in the bar, and she’s _kindly_ offering her knowledge so we can rob one of them and get a good fortune. Isn’t she just too gracious?”

Rose glared at the woman. “Oh, indeed. Too gracious. She’s kindly holding my brother, who is five years old, by the way, as a hostage so we rob a bloody ship for her so she can have a bloody nice life somewhere. Well – good then. Let’s go rob a ship, which we know nothing about and would have to rely on those ten men we know nothing about for. That is _such_ a good idea, I can hardly understand why we didn’t come up with it ourselves,” she sneered. “Now get out of my sight, wench. I’m not in the mood for your bullshit.”

When she turned back, the Doctor was giving her a look she hadn’t seen yet. It was… well. Quite a lot of things in one look, if she were to interpret it. “What?” she asked and he just bent down and kissed her, sliding his arms around her body to hold her tight. 

“I love you, Rose Tyler. My lovely, dangerous pirate.” He smiled at her with so much gentleness it was infuriating, because right now she’d rather have some fiery passion to compete with her own. Instead, he pulled away slightly and grinned his mischievous ‘I have such a great idea, you just wait’-smile. “Now, how about we think about a way to capture a merchant-ship!”

Rose groaned. This would probably turn into a disaster. She couldn’t imagine the ten pirates being all fine with his no-violence-rule when it came to accumulating treasure.

****

“This is boring.”

Rose sighed. Tony had been repeating that sentence all morning, ever since he’d woken up. Now, with the sun high in the sky, he still hadn’t stopped complaining and she was getting a bit irritated. It wasn’t like it was her dream to be on a pirate-ship and watch the waves. 

Oh well, maybe it was, as long as it also involved the Doctor, who was standing at the helm once more, looking absolutely gorgeous and dashing and weirdly competent.

“How about you go learn some more rope-knots? You like that, don’t you?”

Her brother scowled. “James’s said I am a new-sanse. Said I should go to someone else or he’d make me scrub the deck!” He sounded and looked deeply affronted, and Rose had to suppress a giggle. She couldn’t imagine Tony with a brush, but maybe he would actually enjoy it. That would mean convincing him to do it, and right now that looked like an impossible task. She preferred not to overuse the term, but making her little brother do something he didn’t want was so very close to it that she felt justified. “When can we go home, Rose?” he whined, hanging on her hip like a limp monkey and giving her his best impression of a sad puppy. 

“I don’t know. Soon, I promise.” 

“But you said it yesterday!” He was right, she had. And the day before, too. “You always say ‘soon’ and it never _is_! I wanna go home to mommy and dad and not be here with you on that stupid boat with the stupid people and the stupid Doctor!” 

Oh dear god no, please not a tantrum… The crew was already wondering about the strange lack of ‘proper discipline’ of Tony; adding a full-blown Tony-Tyler-Tantrum™ would spoil the last vestiges of respect they had for them. Well… probably not for the Doctor. True to fashion, in the four days they had been at sea now, he’d turned out to be a competent navigator and a shrewd plotter of courses, and George always treated him with great respect. It went a long way with the rest of the men, and any misbehaviour of Tony would fall on her, as the _woman_ and therefor his minder. It had gotten better once she’d put Young John in a chokehold, but it had mostly just diminished John’s status than elevated her own. 

“Ship ahead!” someone called, and instantly the bustle of the ship started to change. What had before been mainly maintenance-work turned into quick, very efficient movement, men rushing and hurrying and tightening and everyone knowing their place. And those that didn’t were commanded by George and quickly verbally whipped into shape. Rose, without anything to do and worse, no clue at what she could contribute, felt utterly useless. Mary danced among the men, looking like one of them ever since she’d abandoned her skirts in favour of a pair of loose trousers. Even Emm looked confident and knowledgeable! The Doctor, still on the helm, was staring out at the sea through the spyglass, and even he, who knew no more than Rose did about 18th century sailing ships, looked remarkably skilled and knowledgeable. 

She fervently wished for an alien attack. At least then she’d know what to do. 

“Ma’am, if this gets to be a proper ambush, you better get under deck with the wee one and hide,” Noah spoke behind her, and it was the drop in barrel that let her get her wits together again. 

“Noah – thanks for your kind words. I’d wager Miss Emm over there is Tony’s minder mostly, so better go tell her. And while you’re here – get me one of those cutlasses,” she demanded and when he just stared at her like she’d proposed everlasting love to a manatee, she rolled her eyes and grabbed his own. “Thanks, but I guess I’ll have to do everything myself. Go do your job, then,” she smiled with maybe an unfair amount of haughtiness. Glancing over the ship, she spotted Tony who had ran from her the moment something interesting was happening standing excitedly near the bowsprit, out of the way of the men but too close to the water for her liking. She went and took him by the hand, pulling him along when he started to whine and protest and dig his feet in. “Stop complaining, you can stay above deck until we reach the ship. But not there!”

While everyone was busy, Rose realized that it was a good chance to get all three of them together and with a sudden detour started towards the helm and the Doctor instead of the galley as she’d first intended. Sadly, the exact same moment she was within reaching distance of the Doctor, Emm appeared and took Tony’s hand. “There you are, Tony!” she said sweetly, “I’ve been looking for you. Do you want to go see if we can find some pirate-clothing for you to wear? And Arthur said you should take care that Mimmy is safe, will you?”

Cursing silently, Rose let go of her brother and watched him bounce happily along with Emm. If the situation were any different, she’d be really happy with the way Emm and Tony got along. As it were, it was simply one more hindrance to getting out of here quickly. 

Instead of following them below deck, Rose placed herself next to the Doctor, trying to make out anything about the ship they were apparently gaining on. “So… are we going to capture that ship? How’s that working on your conscience, Doctor?”

“Not very well, I admit,” he muttered. “It’s a merchant ship alright, so we could, I guess. These men,” he pointed to the deck, where by now everyone had their weapons on them while still maintaining the sails so the _William_ could sail just that little bit quicker, “won’t be very happy with me if I tell them to let the ship go, I expect.”

“Yeah,” Rose acknowledged, “guess not. Least we can limit the bloodshed, right?”

A grim look appeared on the Doctor’s face. “I hope so.”

****

The capture of the ship called _Mary Rose_ , which he didn’t find as amusing as Rose did, went surprisingly uneventful. The crew of the _Mary Rose_ surrendered quickly and without any fight at all after he’d explained their inferior position and that nobody would be hurt if they didn’t resist. The crew of the _William_ was persuaded easily that there was no need for violence and after they’d squirreled every piece of luggage and wares except water and food for the sailors over to their own ship, Maurice cut down the mainsail to ensure it would be a while until the merchants could report to any authority.

Tony had been kept under deck, and he was very cross about it. He stood, clad in pirate-clothing that was entirely too big and looked quite frankly ridiculous on him, with his arms crossed in the middle of the deck, glaring at him like it had been _his_ fault the boy hadn’t been able to see any swordfights. Well – if there had been a swordfight impending, it would have certainly been his fault if that one had been stopped, so in a way – a very futuristic, grammatically interesting way – Tony wasn’t wrong. 

Rose had looked fantastic when she’d balanced over the plank over to the other ship, hair whipping in the wind, sure-footed like a mountain-goat. His praise about that had gotten quite a laugh from the men and a glare from Rose, but how should he have known that telling your beloved that she looked like a goat was rude? He would have to make it up to her tonight. Though in the narrow bed in his cabin, any kind of acrobatics was a painful experience, leading to bruises of the not-fun kind. 

Anyway, their victory had led to a much merrier crew. The men would try out the seized rum tonight, he knew, and maybe Mary and Emm would join them and be less observant, leaving him and Rose a chance to sweep Tony away and be gone. If things went well for once. They probably wouldn’t, but having luck with their first bounty meant he, as a Captain quite generous with his share of the booty, had more leeway and the men looked towards him with less suspicion. They might just make it to the next harbour without any attempt at mutiny yet. 

“Looking thoughtful there, Captain.” It was Emm, quiet and often overlooked. He tried not to make the same mistake, as the overlooked ones were usually the smarter, more dangerous ones.

He raised his guards, just giving her a quick glance before once more watching belligerent Tony, who was slowly thawing under the friendly teasing of Noah. “Yupp. Always thinking, me.”

“I hope you don’t hold this business against us. You have to understand–“ Emm started, but he interrupted her at once. 

“Oh, I do. I understand. But just because I understand your need for escape – believe me, I know an awful lot about the need to escape, more than you ever will – doesn’t mean I’m good with the way you went about it.” He did turn then, because maybe with the slightly less severe Emm, he might get where he couldn’t with Mary. “What your sledgehammer-method of kidnapping Tony and holding him hostage – still, I might add – accomplished, Emm, is that Rose and I will be always on the lookout for a chance against you two. A lot of time and effort wasted, which we could have spent using to your advantage instead of balancing your will against our need. All you did was pitch us against you, make adversaries out of us when we could have been your allies. And you can still turn that around. We could help you, we will help you, if you just give us Tony and let us bring him back. We won’t even be long gone, you might not even notice, and then we can come back and help you-”

“Oh, as if,” Emm snorted, then spit on the deck. “Them’s pretty words, Captain, but nobody is our ally; we’ve found that countless of times. Yes, fine – maybe you could have helped us without extortion. Well, tough! We were desperate, we needed to get away, we have _reasons_ for that which are not whimsical or minor! It was and is literally life-or-death, and if we have to bash a few heads for getting to safety, it is well worth it!”

“Yeah? So, tell me then: if all you needed was a safe way away, why are we capturing ships and why is your partner over there-“ he pointed to Mary, engrossed in talks with George and the two Johns – “already plotting to get one more? No, Emm. You might have started this with one goal, but it has long since changed into what it always does with humans.” He found, had found so before now and would probably find more along the way, that he had a lot less patience as a human than he#d had as a Time Lord. Maybe it was the shorter lifetime, or maybe it was some internal, human-specific _thing_ that Time Lords lacked. He glared at Emm as he continued. “Greed, simple as that. Well – it stands to see where it will lead you. Good day.” And he turned on his heel and walked away, not quite sure where he could go without looking silly but trying for dignity anyway. 

He found the man called Richard mending the sail which had acquired a small tear during their chase and watched him, trying to be interested in the art of sail-repair. After a while, he realized that he actually was and so he was startled when Rose suddenly hugged him from behind. Richard looked a little scandalous at the open display of affection between two supposedly married posh people, reminding him how much farther the world had turned even by the relatively small number of years between 18th and 21st century. 

Not caring about social norms on a normal day in the latter century, he truly didn’t give a damn about it in the first. He turned and kissed Rose soundly. “Hmm, pleasant surprise. What brings you here, fair lady, to the working class?” 

She giggled and shoved against his chest. “As if you’re actually working, mon Capitan. No, I’m here to remind you – and you, Richard – that food had been prepared and that Maurice will be very cross if you don’t come in as long as it’s still warm.”

****

After tea, a very fine meal with a lot of sodium in it, curtesy of the preserved meat from the _Mary Rose_ , when he and Rose were finally alone in their cabin, Emm with Tony in hers and Mary… who cared where, Rose snuggled into his side despite the uncomfortable bed.

“I’m a bad person,” she whispered without looking at him. “I keep wanting this adventure to go on and on, and then I suddenly remember that we have Tony with us and he won’t be safe even if we probably would be. What kind of sister am I, that I can forget about my own brother?”

He swiped a thumb over her shoulder, staring at the ceiling. The ship kept rocking quietly in the calm sea and he knew by now that if the pirates wouldn’t be singing rude songs out on deck, the night would be completely silent bar the occasional noises from sea-dwelling creatures. Two times in a row now, he’d sneaked out of bed and onto deck at night, staring at the sky with its myriads of stars, the Milky Way bright above him and brilliantly visible with no light-sources on earth to disturb the sight. It had made him feel delighted and deeply unsettled, sad into the core of his bones and joyful just for getting to see such a wonderful sky at all. The emotions, of course, weren’t strangers to him. Time Lords were not emotionless, even though some of his brethren had strived to be so. But the depth, the utter chasms of human feelings always surprised him, especially when he thought he had them finally under some kind of control. And yet, despite the gut-wrenching loneliness the pitch-black Caribbean sky caused in his bones, he would go out tonight again and look at it, just to remember how unimportant he truly was, and how nothing mattered in the great scheme of things. 

And how important it was, therefor, to make the best out of his unimportant, insignificant existence. Maybe he’d take Rose with him tonight. She might give him another perspective on things, or maybe just share the loneliness and make it enjoyable. 

“Yes, Rose Tyler,” he murmured. “You’re a truly bad, bad person. You should be set out at sea, maybe on a small island, and left alone there for your sins, which you haven’t committed yet but thought of. Or well… not thought of, which is the actual sin, in this case. Ouch! What was that for?!” 

She’d bitten him, right below his collar-bone! And now she had the cheek to giggle!

“Not sorry.” Despite her words, she softly caressed the spot with her lips. “But truly, you don’t think it’s bad that I keep forgetting Tony even exists?”

Rubbing the skin on her elbow, he sighed. “Rose. You’ve forgotten Mickey exists the moment I offered you a ride in the Tardis. And your mom, you’ve forgotten her as well. You’d known both of them longer than Tony, so… It’s not actually surprising that you’d forget about the little terror.”

He felt her move and thought, though he couldn’t quite see it, that she was leaning over him. “Wow. That’s some blunt stating of uncomfortable facts there, Doctor. Not even trying to reassure me?” 

This time, his sigh was more like a huffed chuckle. “Did you forget who you’re talking to? I’ve misplaced people all over the centuries! Once, I forgot that I’d taken a Nevarri-girl along to see the Smoking Tombs of Evalarti, and when I went back with my companion – uhm… I think it was Tegan, though it could have been … could have been Jo. Anyway, we went back to where we’d started and only when I saw the girl’s parents in the field did I remember that I’d taken her along! I had to go back and get her and pretend we’d never left. Embarrassing business, that.” 

He felt Rose’s body twitch in the way it did when she was laughing but trying not to make a sound. “Alright, I get it. This is something I have to come to terms with on my own, right? Because apparently, you’re even worse than I am.” She lay back down and he tucked her closer to his body.

“Don’t think about it. I know you won’t forget him, because you are Rose and not the Doctor. And it’s really no use thinking about could-have-beens when they are neither likely to happen nor relevant to anything. I can’t see timelines anymore, and humans never could in the first place. It’s pretty useless to imagine them. And even though I’m easily distracted, I know I won’t forget Tony, either, because he’s always there, glaring at me and calling me stupid.”

This time, she actually did laugh. They slept a bit afterwards, and he didn’t go out to see the sky this night. He had woken, and Rose had been interested in general, but they’d … well, been distracted by better things. It had added a certain flavour of ‘interesting’ that they had to keep quiet so nobody would wake from their activities. They might try that at home one day.


	12. Chapter 12

The next morning, he woke from a loud crash and a lot of shouting. He’d never thought he could be upright this quickly in his human body, but fear was, as it turned out, a very good motivator for bones, ligaments, joints and muscles to do some extra-quick work. 

“Ship ahead!” George greeted him when he stumbled, half-dressed, on deck. The source of the crash had come from Maurice dumping a barrel of seawater over still-asleep Young John, who had subsequently jerked upright and toppled a chest filled with tools, which had clattered all over the deck. Young John was grumblingly picking them up, accompanied by the laughter from the rest of the crew. Adrenaline was slow to leave his body, but he was able to listen to George. “’s looks like them Brits, from here.” George handed him the spyglass and sure enough, on a ship just visible with the naked eye, there was a Union Jack flapping on the mast. The ship was behind them, riding the wind fast and with full sails. 

“George,” he said slowly, carefully. “George, what do you usually do when there’s a ship hunting you which might be some kind of authority and you just did something illegal.” At seeing George’s uncomprehending look, he clarified. “Illegal like raiding a merchant ship?”

“Oh! Well, we use’ally try’n outrun ‘em.”

“Right. Thought so. Prepare for outrunning, then. All men on deck!” he yelled because he’d always wanted to yell that, then left George to micromanage the actual workings and returned to the cabin to tell Rose and consult the maps to see where on the ocean they actually were and if there was anything close by they could use for cover. Outrunning a ship sounded like fun, but with the possibility of being captured and tried for piracy, it lost a bit of its appeal.

****

This felt different than the merchant-ship. It might have been the knowledge that they were the hunted and not the hunters, but it was probably mostly due to the tension on board. The Doctor had a pinched, worried look on his face, still staring out at sea through the spyglass. At her request, he’d given it to her and Rose had been surprised that the British ship, bigger and with more sails and two masts, was now so close she could see individual figures move on deck.

She could also see the cannons, and even though they had some on the _William_ as well, knowing that it might come to a proper fight chilled her blood. If the iron balls split the hull, their ship would sink. 

The pirates were quiet and efficient, giving her tasks like tightening down everything that could be shifted by wind and waves and even helping position the sails of their sloop so they would gain a bit more speed. Emm and Mary were bustling along, and none of the men even raised an eyebrow. That there were three women on the ship who were working like the men had become something of normal, apparently. It would be great, even, if the men hadn’t developed a certain closeness to Mary and Emm and distanced themselves more from her and the Doctor. Even Noah seemed to be avoiding her company. 

When one of their manoeuvres had even her notice the increase in speed, she looked over to the bridge and at her Doctor, grinning in satisfaction. The grin froze on her face when he met her eyes and shook his head slightly.

They wouldn’t make it. 

Quickly, she went down below deck to find Tony, desperately needing to see he was alright. He was in his cabin, playing with the monkey and not at all bothered from what she could see. When he looked up, she smiled at him. Was it better to leave him below deck or would it be better if he were above? Surely, the British wouldn’t convict a child of piracy. Would they? But if they sank and he were trapped, there was no way Tony could survive. But surely there would be enough time to get him if the British Navy came close enough.

A commotion from the top had her jerking back to reality, and she tried to give her brother a reassuring smile. “I’ll just have a quick look. Go, play some more,” she said and without looking back, left to see what was happening.

“No, we won’t be doing that, _Captain_!”

Mary stood in front of the Doctor, proud and beautiful and magnificent and exceedingly grating on Rose’s nerves. The Doctor clearly shared her assessment, as he glared at Mary with that particular brand of condescension that let people think they had barely left the mudpuddles of evolution and were still slithering in the swamps instead of walking on real feet. His hair, sticky from the constant barrage of salty water, stood up worse than ever, making him look like an enraged hedgehog.

“We need every bit of speed we can get!” he sneered. “If we throw the heavier bales out, the crates as well, we could gain one-and-a-half knots and it might just give us the advantage! We only need to get closer to land, and there’s …” 

Mary just spoke right over him. “We’ve fought for those goods! They’re ours! We need them, they’re not yours to take. Or to throw away.” She turned, addressing the pirates who had gathered close. “Right? It’s ours, not his! He just wants to dump them, and who’s to say he’s not some British spy, come to take us all to task?”

“Oh, but that’s just rubbish, Mary!” he yelled, at the edge of his patience. “You of all people know I’m not a spy! And if I were,” he spoke to the men, “I wouldn’t _dump_ our bounty, since I’d be destroying evidence!”

“Oh, ain’t he posh, that Brit, eh?” Mary sneered, getting a few chuckles from the sailors. “’Evidence’ – well, I don’t know about evidence, but I know ‘bout being hungry and wantin’ a better life. What about you, then?” 

To Rose’s horror, most of the men nodded and ‘ayed’ at her words, and Mary cast a smug look at the Doctor, full of superiority and sneer. Hatred, deep, proper hatred rose in Rose at the sight. She’d _liked_ Mary! She’d pitied her and had wanted to help, and this was how she repaid their efforts? No, she wouldn’t let that lie. With determination, she stepped between the two, hand on the buckle of the cutlass in her belt and hoping her eyes were spitting fire because that’s how mad she was and that’s how she wanted people to see her.

Furious.

Protective.

Dangerous.

The Bad Wolf, Agent Tyler, Dame Rose of the Powell Estate and Rose _fucking_ Tyler, all in one coiled-up angry package.

“Oh, shut up, you stupid bint,” she snarled, as much disdain in her voice as she could find. “ All you ever wanted was your own gain and your own advantage. Don’t pretend to care about any of them,” she gestured at the assembled pirates, “because all you care about is _you_! If you had any sense at all, you’d not argue at this point in time! Don’t you all see? There’s a bleeding British ship hunting us, and it’s _right there_ , and you’re arguing about whether to get rid of a bit of your booty? How stupid are you?”

She might have had more to say, but in that moment, there was a mighty splash close to their ship followed by a thundering roar. The British ship had fired at them. 

They had run out of time.

****

Everyone scrambled to their position. Now, they were prepared to chuck their bounty overboard and the men and the Doctor and even Mary were running down the loading-deck and up again, shoving boxes and bales into the ocean while others tackled the sails, trying to get the last knots out of the _William_ even though it was right clear that it wouldn’t do them any good.

Rose, while carrying a pile of knives up to put them close at hand for when the inevitable would happen, caught the eye of the Doctor once more and there was a bleak look on his face that quickly changed into determination. _’Tony’_ he mouthed and mimicked hand-holding, and Rose nodded and went down to the cabins as quick as she could. 

“Tony!” she called when she couldn’t see him and the boy peaked out from underneath the bed. 

“Rose! Emm said I’ve gotta hide. Come, here’s place ‘nough, you can go in with me, come!”

She smiled, despite the worry. He was sort of cute when he wanted to be. “I can’t. Tony, the… uh, the police is coming. We’ve got to be on deck. Come with me, and keep out of the way of any fighting and stay with me or with the Doctor, okay?”

Her brother scrunched up his nose. “Why the Doctor? Why not Emm? She’s nice!”

Rose bit off a curse. Tony wouldn’t understand, and it wasn’t his fault that Emm was so good at pretending to be kind and sympathetic. “Because Emm can’t get you home and we can. Tony! Please… come, take my hand.” She held it out and he scrambled towards her, grabbing it and holding surprisingly tight. His hand was clammy and cold, and she noticed how pale he was. “Don’t be scared. We’ll make sure you’ll get home to Mom, okay?” 

“What about Mimmy?” He asked suddenly, casting a look around the cabin. “Where is she, will she be alright?”

“Oh… Uh, I saw her with Arthur just a moment ago. She’s fine – she’s a pirate-monkey, she’ll know what to do. Come, let’s go.”

He nodded and she saw him steel himself. _’He’s a Tyler, alright’_ she thought, smiling proudly. “Don’t let go,” was what she said as they stepped up on deck.

****

The men were preparing the cannons now. Maurice and Young John were carrying the cannonballs while Noah and Richard ran around, lubing the barrels and stuffing gunpowder in and whatever else you had to do when you wanted to shoot a round, iron-cast ballistic projectile at a ship that was fast approaching, already shooting at them and missing them by a very uncomfortably small distance. He ran his hands through his hair, pulling at the ends and tried to think his way out of the situation. It wouldn’t come, no matter how he twisted the variables, and from the look on the crew’s face, bloodshed would be inevitable. From what he knew about piracy-laws in the 18th century, he couldn’t even blame them for wanting to prevent a capture at all cost. Much.

The next shot from the British ship didn’t miss, and with painful scrunch and a loud crash, their mast splintered and rained wood and rope and cloth down on them. Richard screamed in agony, and he rushed over to find him pinned beneath the gaff, which had wedged itself against the railing. He yelled at the first person close by to help, and together they heaved the beam off of Richard and then the British ship had reached them and rammed into them with a mighty crash, shaking and shoving the _William_ and making everyone stumble and falter. 

He spotted Rose, just outside the cabin, holding on to Tony and the doorway. Mary, with her red hair, was easily located near the weapon-pile and Emm… he couldn’t quite see Emm but didn’t care enough to search. 

The Captain of the other ship called over, saying something about the law, about his credentials and about how they were all to come and be good and get arrested. He would have stood and surrendered instantly, but George and the others took matters in hand and roared in defiance, raising their swords and knives and firing the few pistols they had, and then Maurice leapt over the gap between the ships and started attacking.

“No!” he yelled, “Stop, stop that, don’t fight!” but nobody listened and when the Brits entered the _William_ , all hell broke loose. 

He dropped the unconscious Richard at the railing, hoping he would be smart enough to not wake up and ran, dodged and slid towards Rose. It was incredible, how long it could take to go less than eight meters, but with all the people in between, it was very hard to move in a straight line. 

He couldn’t see Rose and something clenched inside him, crushing his heart or maybe his lungs so it was hard to breathe. Soon, though, the fighting between him and her lightened and he spotted her, still in front of the cabin, holding Mary and Young John at bay. Whatever the two wanted couldn’t be good.

He didn’t dare call, for she might lose her concentration, but his brain was acting all on its own by then. Angles, force and speed, direction of the wind and air resistance ran inhumanly fast through his head and he grabbed a heavy, arm-long piece of wood and hurled it towards one of the barrels on the cabin’s roof that hadn’t yet been dumped overboard. 

It fell, spilling its contents of salted mackerels out over the roof and they slithered down on the three – four, with Tony – people underneath. With a yelp, Mary jumped backwards and slipped, thumping hard on her arse and losing her cutlass. Rose lunged, grabbed the weapon and held it out in front of her, her mouth open in a nasty, snarling grin. She was still holding Tony behind her with her other hand.

John had slipped as well, but he didn’t fall and instead threw himself forward, trying to tackle Rose to the ground. With a yell, Tony surged at the man and shoved him, hard, which saved Rose a nasty cut but brought him right into John’s clutches.

All that happened so fast, he had no time to intervene. He _saw_ what would happen, knew it without a shadow of a doubt, and yet he couldn’t do anything to prevent John grabbing the boy easily and heaving him over board. 

Rose screamed, a sound he would pay millions to never hear again, and lunged at the pirate but one of the British soldiers who’d just put Mary in cuffs grabbed Rose around the middle and held her hard against his chest. 

She struggled and screamed and yelled and bit and kicked, but it was no use, and in all this, in midst of the smoke of gunpowder and the moaning and cursing and yelling and crying, the Doctor stood rooted in a calm bubble, with all of the universe’s possibilities spilling inside his mind. All the what-if’s, the not-so’s, the never-ever’s, the could-be's and the maybe-possibly's ran like golden threads through the world, and it scared him because there was only one line that was bright and shiny and he had to let go of it, of his own shiny, golden string that had guided him in this particular universe, had been his strength and his foundation and his … well, his everything. But he would have to, there was no other way.

The Doctor did, he let go and rushed towards the railing and plunged himself over the edge after one other sparkling thread, into the churning water of the Pacific as close as possible to the spot he’d seen Tony fall in. He heard his name be screamed just before he went under and with all his heart and all his might, he wished her luck.


	13. Chapter 13

The water was surprisingly cold. Also surprising was how much the salt stung in his eyes and how hard it was to see underneath the surface and how awful it tasted in his mouth and how painful tingle in his nose was.

He held his breath and dived, turning around and around, trying to spot Tony but the water was white with foam and the hulk of the _William_ was so close that it blocked out the light from the sun. 

He couldn’t see him – surely he hadn’t drowned yet… No, no, Tony had to be somewhere! Could he swim? Did five-year old humans learn to swim already? Did they have a swimming-reflex? He didn’t know and went up, trying to see above the waves. 

“Tony!” he spluttered, spitting out the salty water when it slipped inside his mouth. “Tony. TONY!”

From above, he could hear the fighting continue. Nobody had yet given up, and nobody was looking over the railing and if they did, they didn’t care about him or Tony. He thought he could hear Rose scream, but it might have been imagination thinking because there was so much water around him and his clothes were pulling him downwards and his arms and legs were already getting tired, fighting to stay afloat. 

There! 

The ships must have drifted away from the original point of meeting, or maybe Tony had been caught in a current – no matter, he saw him, saw his head right over a wave and quickly, he swam in that direction, mentally cursing his decision to wear shoes with laces that wouldn’t come off easily in the water. 

“Doctor!” Tony cried, “helblb!” as he went under, and the Doctor gave all he had to get to him. He caught his shirt just as Tony went down again and heaved him to the surface, fighting to stop the clinging, wriggling and panicky kicks as Tony tried to climb up his body to stay on the surface. 

“Stop, Tony. _blrb_ Tony! Stop it, I got you, cal _blblb_ m down.” While he wished he could remember the lesson for water-rescue that he’d been taught once upon a time by one of his companions – Jo? Possibly – better, he did recall that it required floating, holding the victim on his chest. Well, brilliant – quite hard to hold a squirming, wet human on his chest and float when that human was trying his best to push him under so he would stay up. But he tried. 

Finally, after a seemingly endless fight with the surprisingly strong child, the Doctor had Tony firmly and close to his body with one arm and could use the other arm for swimming. He was exhausted himself, coughing whenever he heaved too deep a breath. Tony wasn’t much better, and on top of that he was shivering awfully. Hard to determine whether it was from fear or cold. 

Carefully, after some floating to get a bit of strength back, the Doctor turned to see how they could get back on the ship.

“Oh, blimey – this is so not good.” 

“What?” Tony whispered, and he swept his hand over the kid’s head to keep him calm. 

“Nothing. Well… not nothing, just nothing to worry about. We’ll be fine, don’t worry.” And they would be, he knew. He’d made sure and had done an exorbitant amount of testing that the vortex hopper was waterproof, and knowing that kept him calm himself. The two of them wouldn’t drown here, that much was certain, but the situation was still not exactly good.

When he’d jumped after Tony, he’d known this outcome was a possibility. Still – seeing the two ships small as children’s toys moving towards the horizon, one in full sail and the other looking like a sad, broken animal being led to the slaughter was discouraging. It was clear that the fight had been lost by the pirates, and the victors were bringing them to court.

_Rose_ , he thought, but didn’t say anything. 

He’d get her back. He would not leave her here, she would be fine because she was Rose Tyler, had survived so much and didn’t know the meaning of ‘impossible’. But for now… for now, he had to trust her to get by on her own. 

_‘If there is one thing I believe in, it is her,’_ he’d once claimed in front of the Beast, and so far, his belief had never been misplaced. With a deep breath – interrupted by a wet cough – he twisted a little so he could reach the vortex hopper, memorized the coordinates and, holding Tony as tightly as possible, clicked the ‘home’-button.

****

It was a good thing he’d spent so much time on the hopper’s shielding, or Tony would have puked up everything he’d eaten the moment they arrived back home.

As it were, they landed on the grass in front of the Tyler-house, wet and shivering and coughing up a lung. Or two. Tony was crying, actual, real tears, and clung to the Doctor with a strength that was still remarkable, even after having witnessed it before in the ocean. 

Everything in him screamed to go back, to hop right back onto the ship, find Rose and sweep her away and not waste a minute to do so. But Tony was crying and sobbing and begging for his mommy, and there was just no way he could leave the boy outside alone.

And it wasn’t like he was in a hurry – he could hop right back to the moment he’d left. It felt terrible even thinking about the delay, and yet he was out of real options. 

“C’m on, kid, let’s get you inside and into a shower, huh?” 

Like a limpet, Tony hung from his neck, his legs wrapped around the Doctor’s hips, squishing some organs – kidneys? Maybe – in the process. He wasn’t heavy, and his body-heat was rather nice against his own chilled body. They had just crossed the threshold when Jackie appeared, smiling at the sight of them until she realized what they were wearing and the general state of them. 

“Oh my God, why are you wet? Did you fall in the pond? No – wait … Tony, what are you wearing? Why… Where’s Rose? Doctor… Doctor! What have you _done_!” she yelled. “PETE! Come down here at once! And you!” Jackie pointed at the Doctor, “you don’t move! Tony, come here, are you okay?” 

“Mommy!” Tony jumped from the Doctor and ran to Jackie, flinging himself against her waist. “Mommy, we saw _pirates_!” His tears from before were forgotten, and he beamed all over his face as he squirmed against her, getting her clothes wet and decidedly filthy. “Real pirates, with boats and sails an’ knives and I made knots! I am the king of knotting, John’s said, an’ we stole a boat an’ a ship an’ it was called _William_ \- what a silly name, I woulda named it _Firedragon_ or summthin’ cool! And I slept on _straw_ , it was really itchy and smelled bad. Oh, and Arthur had a monkey, her name was Mimmy – can I have a monkey, Mom? Pleeeeeeeeease? Please-please with a cherry on top? Emm said I could have one. Emm’s so nice and … where’s Emm? And Rose?” he turned to look back and the Doctor cringed. He’d have rather just stood dripping in the hall a little bit longer instead of being asked that question. 

“Jacks? What… Doctor, I thought you’d have left already. Isn’t the party… wait. Why’re you wet?” Pete’s voice trailed off, and the Doctor winced again. This was going to get terribly domestic, he feared.

****

After some very colourful shouting, mostly at him, Jackie had finally agreed to get Tony upstairs and into a bath. The boy had stood by, grinning a huge, Rose-like smile while his mother had cursed, her hands clapped over his ears. Luckily, the Doctor’s tongue had behaved and he’d refrained from pointing out that while they’d been gone, Tony had heard more curse-words than Jackie Tyler had in her repertoire.

He didn’t think it would have gone over well. 

Now it was only him and Pete in the hall, and he wished to be anywhere else in the universe. Especially if ‘anywhere’ meant ‘in the Caribbean in the 18th century’. “So, I gather you lost my daughter somewhere in the water?” Pete asked, arms crossed in front of his chest, with a deceptively calm voice. 

“Not lost, as such. Just… left. And not in the water, she was … fine. On a ship. When I left.”

“Ah. Much better.” Still so calm. The Doctor felt his heart beat quicker in his chest. Apparently, human hearts knew how to spot a threat. His throat felt awfully dry – was that normal? “On a ship. I’m certain she isn’t innocent in the choice of location; I know her well enough. But did I get this right? You left her?”

Anger rose inside, and paired with worry and fear it wouldn’t stay down. “I would have done anything not to leave, but there were more important things at the moment,” he growled, hoping Pete wouldn’t push the issue. 

“More important than my daughter?” The raised eyebrow-of-disbelief was just insulting. 

“In that moment – yes.” The Doctor stated, calmer than he felt and with more conviction than he believed. Nothing was more important than Rose, but her well-being also included the well-being of her family. Her future happiness was to be considered in all his decisions, and even without that in mind, in that moment, Tony’d had to come first. “Your son, for instance, who was _in_ the water and who can’t swim!” he hissed and saw a hard-to-catch emotion cross over Pete’s face. “At the time, I thought it more prudent to save him from drowning than anything else. Hope that was alright?” 

He should have spared the sarcasm, because now Peter Tyler was really angry. “Oh, now we’re getting somewhere!” Pete moved to stand right in front of him, and the Doctor wished he wasn’t so cold. Shivers could mean fear, and he wasn’t afraid of Peter Tyler. 

Except when he was. 

“My son – my _five year old son_ wasn’t supposed to be with you in the first place! Tell me, Doctor, why you thought it a good idea to take a small child with you on an adventure?” Pete’s face was so close, he could have kissed him without effort. Or bite his nose. Pete’s breath smelled of wine and potatoes, with a tinge of the roast from dinner. His voice was soft and silent, and in his eyes the Doctor saw warning and pain and barely-hidden terror. “Did you think it was a treat? Try to win his affection? Did you want to teach him a lesson because he’d been mean during dinner?” 

Everything slowed down, and lines and lines of possibilities spread out from this moment. Possible futures where he unleashed his own fury and hurt upon hearing those words and accusations, where he got physical and where he snapped right back, just as hurtful if not more. Futures where he’d be banned from the house, the family, the _life_ of the Tylers and nothing would ever mend between them. 

There were futures where he let it go, where he swallowed the hurt and tried to explain, and all of them were possible and none of them were what he finally chose. Because he’d seen the fear in Pete’s eyes and knew that no words, no assurance, no explanation would lessen them any, and that any further words would make matters worse. For once, the Doctor decided to shut his gob.

He blinked – time sped up again – and he turned on his heel and walked away, out the door and towards his car. 

Rose would be proud of him, he thought distantly as he shakily slipped inside, wincing at the squelch from his wet trousers on the seat. Maybe even the other Doctor would be proud, too. 

And yet, none of that was important enough to dwell on. He had to find Rose, had to get her back home because nothing was important if Rose wasn’t with him, and nothing would ever be important again if she were lost. 

He didn’t remember the drive, only snapped back when he was bent down in front of his door, searching for the hidden key in the secret little hole behind the hallways skirting. Nothing from the drive had registered, and he hoped he hadn’t broken any laws though secretly, he didn’t care if he had.

Once Inside their flat, he stepped out of his shoes and socks and got rid of his scarf-belt and everything that could hinder him while treading water, entered the coordinates into the hopper and jumped. Unsurprisingly, he landed back in the ocean, watching the ships sail away. Too far away. Quickly, he calculated a new set and jumped once more, this time closer towards the ships but still too far to reach. He did it again and again, getting closer and closer but to not cross his own timeline, he had to jump further in time as well which meant the ships moved, too. Usually, it shouldn’t be a problem to calculate their progress but it didn’t seem to work! Once, he got so close in front of the ship that it hit him on the shoulder, pushing him deep under and leaving a nasty bruise on his scapula. Another time, he went too far and arrived on the other side of the British ship, and getting the attention of the sailors proved impossible. 

After twenty unsuccessful jumps – and how could he make so many mistakes, for sky’s sake! – he was exhausted and cold. His fingers were nearly numb and the coordinate-typing got harder and harder each time. 

Oh, maybe that was why me made so many mistakes. Human brains were hindered by cold, and maybe his own Time Lord brain was being held at diminished capacity from lack of blood-flow, too.

Worse even, it was getting dark. When, after the twenty-second jump, he was still too far to reach the ship and it was hard to see the numbers and signs on the hopper’s screen, he was more under the water than above, spitting out water whenever he was able to and sinking right back down after so that breathing was getting hard. 

Oh goody. No respiratory bypass, and drowning was a real possibility. Not a good way to die, he thought while drifting further downwards, deep into the unfathomable blue beneath his feet. _This won’t get Rose back. She’d be real cross if you drown, dumbo._ He smiled. It had sounded like Donna, and she was right. With a worrying degree of detachment, he pressed the ‘home’-button and stopped treading water, letting himself sink. Since his engineering was quite genius, he didn’t drown but instead slumped to their floor, wet and cold but at least not shivering any more. 

Just a quick nap, then he could go back to searching for Rose.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Funny thing. When I started to write this story, it was clear that it would be Doctor and Rose, running after Tony in the Caribbean. And those would be the characters I needed, and nobody else apart from mentions of others and, of course, OCs. 
> 
> So... imagine my surprise when suddenly, Donna appeared and wouldn't leave. She demanded her role in this fic, and nothing I tried to persuade her with would work. I admit, I didn't really make much of an effort because everyone should have a friend like Donna.

The phone was ringing. It rang and rang and rang, and it was so annoying, and it wouldn’t stop. 

Then it did stop. 

Good. 

Quiet was good.

****

There was a knock on the door. _bang bang bang_ Then it stopped.

Another knock, louder and faster. _bangbangbangBANG_ And someone was shouting. He couldn’t quite hear, but it was so annoying. 

_”Doctor? Rose? Anyone?”_

More banging. More shouting. _”Oi, I know you’re in there! Are you shagging, is that it? What? Oh, shut up, Mrs Petersen, they’re all adults and so are you. DOCTOR!”_

“For sky’s sake, Donna, shut up,” he mumbled and turned into his cushions. Except there were no cushions. And no bed. He was on the floor, and the only softness was the carpet. 

It wasn’t very soft.

He was also very, very cold. 

“Ugh, what?”

_”OI! Do you want me to call the police and let them cut the door down? I can hear you in there, now open the bleeping door!”_

Wet. He was wet, and he was wearing silly clothes, and he smelled like sea-water and sweaty men and fish and fire and gunpowder and – Rose! Where was she, he’d… he’d left her, he’d _fallen asleep!_ while she was stars knew where, facing whatever terrible things were to be faced when you’re a pirate. 

Oh no!

“’m comin’” he croaked, because Donna’s threats weren’t to be taken lightly. She was bound to actually call the police, or get an axe for herself. “Wait, ‘m there.” 

The door was not locked, luckily, because doing more than pressing down on the handle would have been too much. He was shivering all over, and he had to concede that he was probably in no shape to go looking for Rose again. Stupid human body with its stupid human limitations!

On his wrist, the vortex hopper was still showing the last coordinates. He memorized them, just in case. 

“There you are, Doctor, have you forgotten our date? I was just about to – whatever have _you_ been up to? You look like a reject from the new Johnathan Depp movie! Why’re you soaked like a poodle out in the rain?”

His teeth chattered, which didn’t help with the explanation. He was quite sure Donna didn’t understand anything beyond ocean, Rose, Tony and pirates, which, come to think of it, were probably the most important parts. 

“Right, right, now. No clue what you’re babbling on about, but you, Mister, need a shower. Hot as it can go. Blimey, you smell like a barrel of seaweed, I can’t wait to hear the full story. No, shoo – off into the bathroom and don’t come out until your skin feels human again, not reptile, hear me?” 

He resisted, maybe out of habit or maybe his body simply didn’t want to obey. Donna took matters in her own hands, shoving him bodily into the bathroom and tugging at his shirt. “Blimey, what are you wearing? Come, help me get rid of the shirt. Can you… oh, right, your fingers are useless. Fine, but don’t think this will change our relationship any, I won’t be doing any de-trousering again, Spaceboy!” 

Luckily, he didn’t need assistance in taking off his underpants and could step into the shower without further prompting on his own. The water, so hot on his skin even though the thermostat showed it to be merely luke-warm, felt awful and incredible at once and he switched off his brain from using valuable synapses for mundane tasks like using soap and turning the heat up when the water felt cold on him. Instead, he let it roam through the events of the past, let it calculate new coordinates he could try out. He could go back to Nassau, prevent himself and Rose from meeting Mary, but crossing his timeline was the last, the absolute last option he’d take.

He would take it if he had to, but there were other ways to try first. 

What would Rose do, captured by the British? Would she be able to talk her way out of captivity? 

Unlikely. She was good, but she was also clothed like a man, had been using a cutlass at the moment of capture and there was little chance the crew would lie for her sake. 

“Doctor, have you drowned in there?” Donna shook him out of his thoughts and he realized his hands had been swirling across his chest automatically even though there was no more soap to be spread. The water was getting hot, his skin told him and had been telling him for some time, and he quickly switched it off and grabbed the towel. 

“I’m fine, be out in a minute. Could you make some tea?”

He heard a grumble which probably meant Donna would do as asked. He smiled despite the situation. Having her here, inside their flat, helping and shoving and being the voice of reason made him feel warmer than the shower could have ever done. 

Donna Noble. Oh – no, Donna Mott. Maybe not the most important person in the universe, but oh-so-important for him, and so important on her own. 

He stepped out after he’d put on a pair of soft, worn jeans and his favourite t-shirt, the one with the little green aliens and Donna shoved a mug of beautiful, brilliant tea into his hand. “Sit, you madman. And tell me again and this time, make sure the story makes some bloody sense, understood?”

****

The tea had gotten cold by the time he finished the story, but it was still sweet and he drank it anyway. Donna sat and frowned, staring at the vortex-hopper he’d placed on the table as if it would attack her.

“Right. So, this oversized wrist-watch here sends people through time?” She poked the device with her index-finger and frowned even more. “Really? You expect me to believe that?”

“I don’t really care either way, Donna. Not right now.” But he was weary, so weary and tired… he wanted to sleep and yet he couldn’t, wouldn’t, shan’t… “I need to get back to Rose and get her back.”

“Forward.”

“What?”

“You mean you need to get her forward. Not back. Because she is ‘back’ right now and we’re forward from her point of view. So. Forward.”

He groaned. “Fine. Forward. Doesn’t matter, I need to get to where I’ve - _when_ I’ve been and find her and take her with me so we can be here, at this time and this place, together again. Is that better?”

“Much,” she answered prissily and crossed her legs. “Anyway, what is your plan, Oh-Great-one? Just hop around in time until you find her? If, as you say, you can’t just catch her before she gets captured because of crossing your wires or whatnot, you need a better plan.”

His teeth clenched, because he had actually just been thinking about a plan when Donna had interrupted. “Yes. I know. Now shut up and let me think.”

“Oi! No need to be so rude! Considering I found you half-drowned in your own flat, you have quite the gob there, Mister Time-Jumper. Come on – tell me your grand plan, then!”

“Donna!”

“What?”

“Shut. Up!”

She huffed but stopped talking, fiddling with her spoon instead and being otherwise terribly distracting. By breathing, for example. Existing. Sitting in his flat. Being ginger. Inspecting her nails. Staring at him, with those slightly raised eyebrows that meant she was merely waiting for him to catch up to her thinking because she knew things he didn’t and would tell him if he lowered himself to admitting he needed her advice and – “For sky’s sake – what?!”

Donna grinned and settled into position, perky and quite smug. “Right. Well, what do we know? One,” she put her finger out on the table. “we know that she’s been captured by the British Navy, or something with similar authority under British flag. Two, she has by their laws committed piracy, and will consequently be punished for piracy. Three, she’s still somewhere in the Caribbean, and will therefore be on trial in that area. Not in London, or anything – that’s right, is it?” 

“Uhm. Yes. That’s right. Four, we know the name of the captured ship. _William_. Oh, Donna – that’s brilliant!”

“I know,” she said smugly. “But to be fair, you were being particularly dense there.” She knocked on his forehead and he flinched back. Being mocked by her and being touched by her still thrilled him in a way that was similarly wonderful though not at all similar to how Rose’s touches and mocks made him feel. “But that’s alright, I know, you’re worried. So – what we need to do is find accounts of the _William_ and their crew. And since we’re looking for Rose and not some dumb person, it shouldn’t be hard to find evidence of her.”

“Oh yes! Or no – I mean, yes, we will, and even better – she’s really smart, and she knows I’ll come get her! Oh Donna, I could kiss you!” And without thought, he stood and reached over and smooched her right on the mouth.

For a second, time froze and they stared at each other in shock. He, remembering the last time he’d kissed a Donna, Donna Noble, then, and how it had shocked him and saved his life, and how that time felt awfully close in terms of shockage to now, and she… well, something, judging from the look in her face. 

“Whoops. Sorry,” he mumbled and sat back down, feeling a deep blush creep up his neck and spread over his face. “Bit excited there, me. Sorry.”

“S’okay”, she croaked, then coughed and wiped her lips. “Happens. Now – where do we look for signs of Rose Tyler?”

****

The first place they looked was the internet. The Doctor was surprised that it actually was also the first place they found what they were looking for: the account of the _William_ on some obscure but still easy-to-find website about pirate-ships and their fate.

“No Rose Tyler on board,” Donna said, a little discouraged. He’d let her do the typing and searching, not because he was slow or incapable but because she was there and wanted to help and was not that much slower than he would be. “Sorry, would have been too easy, right?”

“Oh, but that’s still fine. Because here,” he pointed at the screen, “are two names I know can get us more.”

“Mary Read? And Anne Bonny? I’ve never heard of them before, are they famous?”

“Oh yes! Most famous female pirates in the Caribbean. Mind you, they are also the only female pirates on record in the Caribbean. But there’s history of them; come on, type it in, look if you can find more.”

Donna did, and quickly they found that both women had been on the _William_ , had been captured and found guilty of piracy. Apparently, and to his great surprise, the two were said to have sailed under the mysterious Captain Jack Hackness, sometimes also named Jack Rackness or Rackham, who’d been swept overboard during the fight with the British ship and had probably drowned, as he’d never been found. 

Out of curiosity, Donna had clicked on the article-link for Hackness and they’d realized that there were countless theories as to his fate, some of them claiming he’d been rescued by dolphins and some of them saying he’d never actually been on the ship at all. 

Mary and Anne, though, had been brought to Kingston, where they’d had their trial, pleaded ‘their bellies’ by claiming they were pregnant and… he stopped reading from then on. He didn’t need to know more, because he would change it anyway and if he read what fate would have befallen either of the names, possibly Rose as well as she might have been one of them under alias, he might worry too much to be of any use.

“Right, that’s enough,” he said and closed the laptop right over Donna’s fingers. He waved away her protest by saying it wouldn’t matter, he knew where to go and how to find Rose now, turned and entered coordinates and data into the hopper.

Donna slapped his hand away from the thing and stood, hands on her hips in front of him. “Oi, Spaceman, don’t ignore me! Do you even know where you’re going? And more importantly – will you be going there with your skinny self in this?” She gestured at his whole body and he looked down on himself. 

“Oh, uhm. No, I better go get my clothes from earli-“

“They’re still soaked, you dork. And you’d look like a right proper Englishman, wearing those things…. Not! Nobody’ll let you into anything, least of all a court, and your chances of getting Rose out would be zilch. Let’s think before action – ‘s not like we can miss the right time, with you having this time-jump-thingamabob there.”

She did have a point. In a different way than she knew, but it was a valid point. Because he’d planned to jump right into Rose’s cell and get her out, clothes wouldn’t have mattered one way or the other, but he didn’t know where Rose’s cell was, not even where the prison was he needed to be at, and what day… too many variables, and all could be solved with the right clothing. 

With a sigh, the Doctor sat back down at the table and scratched the growing patch on his head absently. “Right. Where can we get 18th century British clothes?” 

Donna’s eyes sparked. “Oh, I know just the place for that.”

****

Donna’s friend Mildred worked at the British Re-enactment-Society. He hadn’t known there was such a society, but apparently there was, and they had a lot – a _lot_ of costumes of all periods.

With Donna talking Mildred out of her key for the costume-room, it was slightly disappointing how easy it was to nab one of them. Finding one roughly in his size, though, was a lot harder. 

“What about this? It looks like you would fit.”

The Doctor looked over. “That’s true, but it’s late 19th century – not anything recognizable for the ooooh, now this is brilliant!” 

The coat he’d found was knee-long, green, nearly blue it was so dark, made from a velvet-like cloth, with a white lining. It looked magnificent, and paired with the white trousers Donna had found earlier, it would look suitably posh and important, he was sure. 

“Oi, in that, you’ll look like a peacock,” she cackled but flipped through the hanging garments to find him a waistcoat. Ten minutes later, they were out, with a bag of clothes over their shoulder. 

“It needs to be back by tomorrow, or Mildred’ll get into trouble with her friends from the society. Now, let’s plan the next step of attack,” Donna said once they stepped back into his flat. “What do we need? Maps of Kingston? Some credentials? Oh – I could make some with this brilliant program on the laptop, I’ve done our brochures for the travel-agency with it, I’m a real wizard with that thing.” She practically glowed, animated in ways that hurt to look at. She was Donna, as much Donna as Donna Noble had been – still was. And yet she was a new Donna, one with more confidence and even more spark than his first friend of that name, and she’d come to her confidence all on her own, without time-travelling, skinny aliens.

He loved this Donna, so much. And yet seeing her sparkle and shine reminded him of his travels, of the times with Donna Noble that would forever be lost, only remembered by outsiders and the Doctor. And he knew that his counterpart would shy away from those memories for the pain they brought. 

“Oi, anyone home?” Donna Mott asked him now and he must have drifted off for her to snap her fingers in front of his face. She rolled her eyes when he shook himself. “You really are a spaceman, aren’tcha? Well, what now? What’s on the menu? Should I start the program – what credentials does one need?”

The Doctor grimaced. It would probably not go over well what he’d have to say next. “Nothing. I have what I need,” he pulled out his psychic paper – well, Rose’s, as she’d had it in her pocket when she had been swept up into this universe after Canary Wharf – and showed it to her. 

“It says ‘Gummiworm Inspector’. Are you taking the mickey outta me?” 

“What? No! It’s … I’ll explain later. Just … it says what the people who see it want or expect it to say. Says quite a lot about you, to be fair,” he winked. “I’ll just hop into Kingston, get into the prison, find Rose, hop back. No need for a map or anything, really… and I’ll be back before you can even turn on the telly. Please – stay here? I don’t… I can’t … t’s bad enough I lost one, I …”

Donna, in her infinite grace, wisdom and brilliance, took pity on him. “Oh. Well… Fine. I’ll… just wait here.” She looked so forlorn and sad, like the kid rejected by all the others and left to play alone. Just a quick hug – no more than a second. He could spare a second. 

Her body pressed close, he barely wanted to let go. He and Donna had hugged in this world, once or twice, but never like this, never for comfort. It was… exhilarating and heart-breaking and he didn’t want it to stop and he yearned for her body to be Rose’s, for Rose to be with him and squeeze him back and tease him and yell at him for … he didn’t care for what. 

“I have to go,” he whispered into her hair. “I promise, next trip, you’re with us. We already had plans for that. Wanted to break it to you a little less dramatically, though,” he smiled and felt her giggle in response. 

“Oh, fine. Just go and get your Rose back, and then you two tell me all about it, hear me?”

And the Doctor left to change in the bathroom, entered the coordinates and … did remember to say goodbye before he pressed the button.

****

Kingston was busy and bustling, a lot more stone and cobble than Nassau had sported. That wasn’t a high bar, though. The air was hot and stifling, and smelled of humanity, which was to say – awful. He regretted the chosen coat and the human body for insisting on sweating. Hopefully, he wouldn’t have to be here long enough to stink.

The court was easy to find – he only needed to ask one person and didn’t even have to pretend too hard that he wasn’t completely excited to be back in the Caribbean, back in the 18th century, back _travelling_! Even now, when he couldn’t be sure what had happened to Rose in the time he’d not been with her, his blood sang in joy and his nerves twinged and everything was so much brighter and more exciting than London even on its best day could be. 

He was truly not cut out for being stuck in one place, he contemplated on his way to the courthouse. Being a time-traveller got into your bones and into every cell, and with Donna being one herself and being partly responsible for his creation, he couldn’t have ever turned out to be … a wages clerk, or something in linear London. 

Good thing he was so clever and had been able to rescue the vortex-hopper. 

Right. Courtroom. “Hello. I’m the- I’m Doctor … Tyler! Here for the … pirates?” The guard outside the old, dark-stoned courthouse looked unimpressed and disinterested. The Doctor didn’t even have to show his paper to be waved in, and he followed his vague direction towards the room where the records were kept and created. 

His research hadn’t come up with a fixed date as to when the pirates from the _William_ had been brought to land, only for their sentence, and he’d just calculated to a few days earlier so he could get Rose before she was brought in front of a judge.

Knowing that the two female pirates had pled mercy for their unborn children made things a lot easier. “Good day to you, kind sir,” he said to the scribe in the record-room, a weedy man with a balding head and a very dour face. “I’m Doctor Tyler, I was asked to see the prisoners from the – oh, what was the name…? Ah, yes, _William_! “

The scribe looked up from his big book and gave the Doctor an impressively condescending stare over his specs. He glanced at him, taking in his coat and trousers and clean boots and his derision grew even more. The Doctor just waited him out, smiling amiably, and finally the man looked into his big register. “No such ship been here. Sir. Have you possibly been mistaken?”

He blinked. The ship _had_ been named _William_ , hadn’t it? “I… might have been? I was told to come examine two … unusual sailors, who have been accused of piracy and who are of… a rather genderspecific disposition.” The man stared at him, uncomprehending and too bored to ask. What a waste of a perfectly brilliant imitation of British prudery! “Pregnant,” he clarified. 

“Ohhhhh, them women!” The clerk’s eyes lit up in recognition, and he seemed more animated than was probably good for his blood-pressure, poor man. “Of course, of course. Credentials?” The Doctor showed him the psychic paper and soon after, he was led by a guard into the cell-block of Kingston’s prison. 

The man stood in front of one of the doors, slowly going through the keys one by one and the Doctor wanted to shove him aside and just open the door any other way, possibly just break it down with his bare hands if he had to. Finally, the slow-witted human found the right key and unlocked, told him he should call once he was done and opened the door.


	15. Chapter 15

“Oh. Now that’s what I call a surprise.” 

She was relatively well-kept, considering she was suspected of being a pirate. Her clothes, trousers and a loose shirt, like a male sailor would wear, were dirty but all in one piece, and her eyes looked fierce and shiny and not broken or damaged, as he’d feared if he’d have let his thoughts wander. 

She was also, sadly, not Rose Tyler. 

“Ah, it’s you. Sorry – wrong door,” he growled and Mary – because of course it was Mary! – sneered back at him. 

“Course it is. How’d you get here. Swam?” 

“No,” he sniped back. “Was the strangest thing. Three dolphins came and carried me away, to a little island where a wealthy Brit and his family were having their weekend-hideaway. They gave me clothes and brought me to Kingston and voila, here I am.”

Mary, true to form, spit on the ground. “Come here to gloat, then?”

“Of course,” the Doctor said. “And now I’m done with gloating. Good bye.” Turning, he took a breath to yell for the guard with the keys but stopped when she called for him.

“Captain,” she said, and her voice carried a different, unexpected timbre. She nearly sounded… nice. “Wait. Please.”

With a sigh, he turned around and looked at her. Even dirty and clearly at the end of her rope, she had a magnificence to her that was hard to ignore. Her eyes were still reminiscent of Tarivien tungsten but they had lost some of their bitterness. She was trying to plead, and he felt a wave of compassion for this proud, strong person whom he’d loved to have saved if she’d just been less greedy and less selfish. “What?”

“I know… I know I deserve to be here. I do, so I’m not… you clearly are here for her, aren’t you?” He nodded. “Well. She’s lucky, she is, to have someone like you. She’d said you’d come, and I laughed at her and called her a naïve child, but the laugh’s on me, isn’t it? She was right all along. You’re here, and … she’ll be out. And… I truly hope she’ll have a good life, with you and the lad. The boy… he’s fine?”

The Doctor nodded stiffly. Mary didn’t deserve any knowledge about Tony, but then again, maybe the fact that she even asked about him made her deserving anyway. 

“Good. That’s… Your Rose was real worried when she though we weren’t lookin’.”

“Mary. Not that I don’t enjoy a good banter, but what do you want?”

Mary sighed. “Nothing. Not for me. I’m… I said ‘m with child, but it is a lie and they will hang me soon’s they know. And… well. Maybe that’s what’s coming for me, for my life, but … Not for Emm, it’s not.” The Doctor frowned. “Emm… she’s really pregnant. Her husband, that swine, would have custody of the child when he gets ‘ere, and he doesn’t deserve anything of hers, certainly not her child. So if you … if it’s in your power, as clearly you’re a man with opportunities, maybe you can … find a way to make certain he won’t ever get his dirty, old, crusty, wandering hands on the wee one, yes?”

She sounded sincere. So very, very sincere that the Doctor had no choice as to believe her. His brain yelled at him for being an idiot, but the Donna-part of his mind was melting into a puddle of sympathy already. “Oh, fine,” he finally snapped. “I’ll do my best. Anything else you want?”

Mary swallowed and shook her head. “No. Thank you. For… well, for everything. Even if … all we did was make things worse, we still… I’m still grateful. So thank you.” Her smile was sad and a little self-deprecating but still very sincere, so he felt himself nod gently before he called for the guard and was let out.

****

He skipped the cell with Emm in it, having the foresight to look through the tiny window first this time. And in the next cell, he finally found Rose Tyler. Rose, his Rose, beautiful and dirty and angry and wild-eyed and her eyes lit up with joy and her face nearly split with her smile and she bit her own palm so she wouldn’t scream until the guard had locked the door again and then, finally, she was back in his arms. Safe and warm and round and hard and soft and wonderful, so very wonderfully alive. His. Only his, his Rose, his wife in everything but on paper, in every way that truly counted.

“You need a shower,” he said with his nose buried in her hair, and he felt her sob and giggle at once. 

“You’re wearing velvet. You look like a peacock, mon Capitan.”

“Donna said the same. Don’t get snot on it, it’s got to be back tomorrow or Mildred will get the boot.”

Rose laughed until she cried and clung to him with all her considerable strength. And it worried him, her being so clingy and needy, as she was the stronger, more independent one in their relationship. Worried him about the time they’d been apart – oh skies, how long has it been?

“Just seven days,” Rose whispered. He’d either telepathically communicated with her, or spoken out loud. “Spoken, you prune,” she whispered again. 

“Am I keeping a running monologue then?”

She hiccupped a lough. “Yes. And I also know what you’re thinking, Doctor. Don’t worry, nothing happened. I’m just really, really, really glad you’re here and not been eaten by a shark.”

“Rescued by dolphins, actually,” he joked and she giggled. “Tony is fine, by the way.”

“I know.” Rose let go of him and created a little distance, too much for his liking but then the clothes between them had been ‘too much for his liking’, too. “When you came in, I knew.” Her eyes shone like stars, like galaxies, like the Sparkling Swamps of Edarog VII, full of pride and relief. “Know why?”

The Doctor shook his head. 

“’cus you wouldn’t have come if he hadn’t been.” 

Maybe she was even right, though he wouldn’t swear to it. “Your parents might not want me to come over for Christmas anymore. Or Easter. Or … anything really. I’m not yet sure that is a bad thing…”

Rose cackled and she took his hand and pressed it to her chest in the way she did. He could feel her heartbeat, and it never failed to make him feel at home. “I’ll sort it out. ‘s more my fault than yours, anyway. But let’s get out, yeah? I really need a shower. And God, I could kill for a toothbrush and some minty taste on my tongue. And – well.” She bit her lip and then smiled with her tongue behind her teeth and it made him tingle. “When did you say the coat has to be back? Because I’d loooove to take it off you tonight.”

Oh. Oh! “Well. ‘Tomorrow’ is a very loose time-reference, I think. Could be any time tomorrow, like say… late in the evening?”

****

He let himself be released from the cell and officially left the building, then jumped right back in to get Rose. Together, they were back in London, 21st century, without a hitch and he finally, finally had Rose back in his arms in their time and secure and … smelly.

“Do you want the first shower?” he murmured into their kiss, and Rose had chortled into his mouth – very disgusting, must not repeat – and acquiesced quickly and maybe a little relieved. 

“Smooth.” He startled from the voice, turning to find Donna leaning in the doorway to the kitchen, cuppa in hand. “You really are a sweet-talker, Spaceboy.” 

“Oh, you. Thought you’d be gone by now,” he sniped back, but in contrast to his encounter with Mary, there was no heat behind it. 

“What, with you being gone only five minutes? I really thought your whole time-swapping-thing would be more impressive. You just blink out and then blink back in? No… fading away and such?” Her arms were crossed in front of her, but she was smiling brightly.

“Oi! It’s very impressive! Anyway, you wouldn’t want fading with a time-vortex manipulator! If you don’t jump right into the vortex with your whole body at once, it rips you apart and scatters your bits and pieces all over the time vortex. You might have one arm be transported to the future, and one ear could be found in mediaeval Greece! Your heart could end up on Venus while—”

Donna held up her hand, palm out. “You’re not exactly selling endorsement for me to come with you in this terror-machine, you realize that, right?” But her eyes sparked with mischief and excitement. With her shoulders, she pushed herself away from the doorway and came to him, taking the lapels of the velvet-coat and smoothed her hands down the front. It was an intimate gesture and his body sparked along the path of her fingers. She patted him on the chest once she’d reached the ticklish spot beneath his ribs and smirked. “The coat’s gotta be off now, sunshine. Mildred will kill me if it gets damaged or smudged. And you better pay for the cleaning because that,” she poked a spot on his hip, “looks icky. Now, strip, Mister!”

“Ey, that’s my sentence,” Rose called over her shoulder, on her way from the bathroom to their bedroom. She only wore two towels – one around her body and one on her head – and looked delectably warm and clean and soft. “Hey Donna. Sorry to be rude but please,” Rose turned and looked at the two of them, heat and lust and love and something else in her eyes, “Leave?”

Donna cackled, took the peacock-coat he handed to her quickly and said she’d be back for the rest of the clothes. He didn’t much care what else she said, only heard the clap of the front door closing. There were more important things to take care of now. Much, much more important things.

****

Rose woke from a very pleasant dream. That in itself was surprising, as she usually only woke from horrible dreams or didn’t remember anything of what she’d dreamt. Hardly ever with the taste of something wonderful still on her mind.

The Doctor was close by, one hand barely touching her skin. He was snoring slightly. She had half a mind of taping the sound as proof as he refused to believe her that he snored at all. But since he’d probably claim she had faked the recording, she didn’t bother to stand up to look for her phone. 

She stretched out the kinks in her body. All the tension from the last weeks had melted into a rather pleasant ache and she wished she could stay between the sheets indefinitely. Sadly, there were things to consider. Things like her family and making amends for the terrible accident that had nearly cost Tony’s life. 

Rose swallowed hard at the memory. Those moments, those seemingly endless seconds when her brother was in the air, falling, falling, falling towards the churning water around their ship… The absolute terror in her brain chilled her, even now that she knew everything had turned out fine. At that moment, she hadn’t even noticed the Doctor, had been about to jump after Tony herself and when that soldier had grabbed her, she’d gone completely mad with fury and terror. She’d only let herself sag once she’d seen her Doctor fly over the railing, and then she’d let the Brit clasp her hands and lead her over to the other ship. She’d sat on deck during the passage to Jamaica, telling herself and everyone who’d listen that everything was fine, that Tony was safe and so was the Doctor and she’d be home, soon and fine, fine, fine, absolutely bloody fine. And wasn’t it a joke that her first ever visit to Jamaica had been into a prison-cell? She hadn’t even seen anything of the city – not that she would have cared for a sightseeing-tour at the time. 

The British Navy had been surprisingly gentle with her, Mary and Emm, probably not yet sure if they’d been captives or pirates themselves. One of the younger soldiers had taken a shine to Emm, blushing whenever she’d smiled at him when he’d brought them their rations on board. Mary had mocked him the moment he was gone, but Emm had chided her for being so harsh and Mary had quieted down a little in her anger.

Then, as Rose had had too much time to think about horrible things that she could’ve done nothing about – like the vortex hopper breaking down, or short-circuiting and electrifying the Doctor, her brother and the whole Pacific – she’d distracted herself by observing the two women. Emm, silent and a bit demure even, had a core of steel inside her that was visible whenever Mary lost her calm and started a rant, blaming everyone but herself for the situation they were in. Emm had stayed calm and cool, level-headed even. She’d had an air of acceptance around her, maybe some fatalistic thing that hadn’t allowed her to really hope for a better future anyway. And yet, in her acceptance, she’d been the stronger one.

Mary had been angry and loud, not one to give up the fight as long as she was breathing. But it had been a shell, a bubble in which she could hide her own insecurities. Only at night, when nobody was bound to come inside their little room underneath deck where the women were kept, away from the men, had Mary lost her harsh, cold, uncaring front and broken down. 

While Rose had pretended to sleep, Mary had wept with her head buried in Emm’s lap, apologizing in choked whispers for making such a mess of things. For being too greedy, for grasping too much instead of being grateful for the chance they’d been given. The sorrow in her voice had been heartbreaking to hear, and Rose’d had to supress a sob herself, biting her hand hard to not let out a sound so they wouldn’t realize that she’d overheard the private moment.

Meanwhile, Emm had shushed her friend – lover? Maybe, Rose wouldn’t rule it out. – over and over, swiping her fingers through the unruly red locks across her thighs. “I don’t blame you, Mary,” she’d whispered, but it had only ever made Mary cry harder. 

Now, safe in her bed, Rose had to bite her lips at the memory. Those two would die, she knew. Had died. They both had pleaded ‘their bellies’, as she’d understood, claiming to be pregnant. And Mary had clearly been lying, though Emm clearly hadn’t. 

Even if the two would survive until childbirth – or in Mary’s case, until it was clear she wouldn’t bear a child at all – they’d still be hanged afterwards. Rose shuddered. They didn’t deserve that. Sure, they’d been responsible for their own accidental pirate-career, but neither of them had hurt Tony. In fact, both had been kind towards him, Emm more so but even Mary had been patient and had even shown him how to treat the monkey so it wouldn’t be scared. She wished she could do anything for them, could spare them the fate that was to come – had come. But she doubted she could convince the Doctor to go back and change things. It could lead to all kinds of disasters, after all. 

“Mornin’” he mumbled into the pillow just then, swiping his hand across the space between them until he found her skin. With a smile, Rose swiped back and pulled him towards her, all in favour of cuddling as much as she could right now. “How’d my little pirate sleep?”

“Very good. Especially after her Captain showed her how much he missed her,” she smirked and kissed his shoulder, his neck, the white streaks of growing hair at his temple. Then she kissed other things on him, and he returned the favour, and things led to another and… well. 

“So”, the Doctor said after, when Rose was already on her way to the bathroom and he’d not yet moved even a toe outside the blanket. “Who’s going to switch the phones back on so your parents can call and yell at us?” 

Rose groaned and let her head droop. They had to, but it would have been nice to just ignore the world for a little bit longer. She’d been so excited for their first adventure, and the last thing she wanted was to be yelled at. And yet, they deserved it. They’d been hasty and had lied to her parents – well, lied by omission, though technically they had lied for real about what they needed costumes for. And then they’d fumbled and made a mistake, and even though, from her parents’ point of view, they’d only been gone a few minutes, it had still been ten days for Tony and seventeen for her. She had half a mind to let the Doctor take the blame, as he would, she knew, if she couldn’t take it. But… truthfully, it had been mostly her fault. It had been her choice; she’d wanted pirates while the Doctor would have been happy to go to some more music-festivals. 

Then again… “Depends. Do you think losing Tony at Woodstock would have been better or worse?”


	16. Chapter 16

They sat in the living-room, side by side on the most uncomfortable sofa her parents owned. It had been a left-over from the first Jackie and Pete hadn’t had the heart to let go of it. Her mom hadn’t had the heart to demand it of him. Rose hated the ugly thing, but she loved it for what it represented. 

The lecture they’d received had been harsh and thorough, and Rose was impressed with the amount of calm the Doctor had expressed when her mother had made it very clear how disappointed she was– quite obviously meaning mostly the Doctor, even though Rose had been adamant that he was not solely to blame. Instead of answering, speaking out or defending himself, he’d sat silently and listened. Mom and Pete had remained standing, her mother gesturing wildly but her dad had just stood by, watching calmly but with a closed-off expression that had hurt Rose worse than all the yelling her mother could do. 

Maybe it was because she knew her mom would always love her, despite that big mistake. Pete, though, as he wasn’t her father, not truly, was under no parental obligation and her insides hurt with the cold knot of insecurity, the possibility that things between her and Pete would never be the same after this.

So instead of looking at him, Rose had focused on the Doctor. Hence being impressed. 

“Do you understand!”

“Yes, I do,” the Doctor answered and there was neither indignation nor dismissal or any sign of him taking the question lightly. “And whatever you… whatever that will mean in the future, I assure you … I will understand that as well.” 

Rose nearly choked on a tear, but nodded, too. “Yes, me too. I… I can’t even say how unbelievably sorry I am for this. I swear it was an accident, we didn’t see him, he… but yes. We were irresponsible about this. We… Yes.” Because what else was there to say? Carefully, she sneaked a glance at Pete from the side of her eye, but he was still standing like a statue, silent and disapproving and forbidding. 

The lump in her belly turned ice-cold and heavy. Everything in her ached to hear him say something, anything, but she wouldn’t even know how to address him. Should she call him ‘Pete’? She’d not done that for years! But if she called him ‘Dad’, he might tell her that she wasn’t allowed that anymore, was not her daughter, not anymore. 

Her eyes welled up and she nearly sobbed, only prevented it when the Doctor grasped her hand in his, squeezing painfully. She clung on, desperate to believe that he would make it better, that somehow, he could. 

“I just wish…” her mom started but then sighed, deep and sad. “Oh, why’m I bothering.” She sat down heavily on one of the cushioned chairs, leaning against the backrest where Pete started to stroke her shoulder gently. “You won’t ever stop travelling, you won’t. I know you didn’t mean to put Tony in danger,” she took Pete’s hand and squeezed, “I know that. And I know it was an accident, but still… I’m not dumb; even if you promise us now that you’ll never do it again, I _know_ you’ll only delay it a little. There’s something wrong with you, something that stops you being happy when you have to stay in one place at a time. I don’t know if it’s always been there or if that foolish Doctor infected you, but it’s clear as day for me. For some reason, you can’t change, even if you wanted to. God knows we can’t make you change. So.” Jackie clasped Pete’s hand tighter, and the statue that was Pete returned the gesture, giving confirmation and assurance. “So, we can only ban you.” 

Colour bled out of the room. Everything turned black and white, grey and a darker grey, and cold-cold-cold. There was a noise in the air, and it took Rose a moment to understand that it was the sound of her blood being pumped through her body, rushing in her ear. 

Her mom was still talking, and she tried to catch up with the words. Somehow, nothing got in and maybe she would faint, wouldn’t that be bloody great? Just slide down to the floor, like a fair maiden in a stupid romance-novel. 

“Jacks,” Pete murmured, and for some reason his voice penetrated her bubble of fear. “I think you should clarify that ban.”

“What? Oh! No, we ban you from taking that bloody … _thing_ with you to our property. Meaning – our house, or garden, the driveway… anything that has our name on the papers.”

“And if you do,” Pete added, in his normal voice now, “it will be confiscated. And destroyed.” 

Rose swallowed and at a glance saw the Doctor pale just as much, but he nodded and Rose quickly nodded, too. “Yes,” she croaked. “I understand.” 

“Understood,” the Doctor agreed. “If… if you’d rather confiscate it right away….” 

Pete grimaced and closed his eyes. “That is very tempting. Everything in me wants to take an axe to it and be done with that instrument.” When he opened them, there was pain inside and Rose wished she could go to him and take him in her arms, squeeze him tight just to get that expression out of his face. It bore too much resemblance to the pain she’d seen after his wife had been converted. But she didn’t dare, too scared of what his reaction might be. 

“But,” Pete spoke, “but. Jackie and I agree, and have agreed long before yesterday, that we haven’t seen you as happy and relaxed before. Your mother-“ not ‘we’, but ‘your mother’. Rose felt like being skewered with a rusty spear. “-says she’d only ever seen you like this after you came home from your little time-trips. And also – you’re an adult, Rose. You can and will and have to make your own decisions. Have done so for a while now, even before you brought the Doctor here. So we won’t be taking something that gives you joy, not if both of you follow our rules. Is that understood?”

“Yes.”

“Yes.” They said in unison. 

“Good. You can leave now.”

They stood, and with cold, stiff and heavy limbs, Rose followed the Doctor out the door. She was quivering, too scared to leave and miss her chance and too terrified of getting confirmation for her fears. The Doctor stopped her right after she’d closed the door to the living-room and nudged her back towards it. “Go. Talk to him.”

Now, the tears wouldn’t be stopped. She didn’t know how he knew what she was so afraid of, but he smiled gently at her and kissed her lips. “Go, Rose. I’ll be outside.” 

With her heart beating like war-drums, Rose knocked and re-opened the living-room-door.

****

When she stepped outside the house, her heart was millions of pounds lighter. The sky was grey and forbidding, yet looked like the most beautiful sky she’d ever seen and even the swelter of the August-heat felt marvellous.

Only a few minutes before, she wouldn’t even have noticed a spaceship landing in the pond. 

The moment she’d stepped back into the living-room, Rose had burst into tears. _”Dad?”_ she’d asked, and Pete had looked up at her with a question in his eyes. _”Can I still call you ‘Dad’?”_ Nothing much had made it to her brain after, only the gentleness in her not-really-but-truly-real-father’s eyes and the open arms, and the eye-roll from her mother when Rose flung herself against her dad’s chest. 

_”Of bloody course she turned out to be a daddy-girl. Of bloody course.”_ But she’d smiled and patted Rose’s head as well, and after that, there was only sobbing, hugging and a big heap of ‘I’m so sorry’s. 

Outside, she found the Doctor leaning against his car. A few feet away stood Tony, similarly posing with his hands in his pockets and a slight air of superiority. She had first wanted to go hug her Doctor, but now Rose stood and watched the display with curiosity. 

“Tony,” the Doctor finally spoke.

“Doctor,” Tony answered. 

“How’ve you been?”

“Fine. And you an’ Rose?”

“Fine. She was in prison for a while, but she’s fine.”

Now, Tony’s distant expression changed into high interest. “Really? A real prison, with wooden doors and chains an’ such?” 

“Yupp. Real prison. Nope, no chains. But straw. Real straw on the ground and a really heavy door. The guard had a ring with at least twenty keys on it.”

“Cooooooool!” Tony exclaimed with a big grin. 

The Doctor grinned right back. “Yepp, really cool.”

“How’s Emm? She alright? Didcha know she’ll be a mommy, too, soon? An’ how’s Mimmy?”

“Emm’s… fine. Yes, I know she’s pregnant. And I’m sure Mimmy is good – she’s gone back to her monkey-family and living a great monkey-life.” That last bit was a lie, Rose knew. She didn’t know what had become of the monkey, but she was certain there hadn’t been other monkeys to come and collect it.

“Super!”, Tony beamed, still young enough to believe the story. He was no closer to the Doctor but at least he wasn’t sulking or throwing insults. And – he looked really good, with the tan he’d gotten, now clean and fresh-faced and … something. Something had changed, Rose felt, something… She couldn’t name what it was. “Will ya take me to an’ ‘venture again tomorrow?” Ah. Might be that. Oh boy…

“Ah.” The Doctor swiped his hands through his hair. “I’m sorry to say that I can’t. It’s forbidden to bring children on such ventures. Might wander off and get lost.” He winked and Tony’s eyes went big and round.

“Ey! I din’t wanner off! Someone shoved me an’ then I got lost but then you found me and Emm was so nice and we ate those weird fruits – did you eat them? Maybe mom can get them inna store, she promised she try if I draw them for her. Didya?”

“That’s good. And no, we didn’t eat any fruit. Sorry. But I’m sure your picture will be very accurate.” 

Tony nodded and then he turned and spotted Rose. “ROSE!” He ran and jumped at her, and she caught him but nearly fell over. 

“Uff, Brother-my-Brother, you got heavy! How much did you grow since we came back?” And he giggled and it was such a sweet sound and then he extricated himself from her and dashed away, yelling about drawings and fruit and pirates and seasoning it with a few swear-words that made her cringe.

“Ah,” her Doctor said and smiled. “We better be off then, before Jackie hears those.” He held out his hand and she took it. 

“Oh yes, let’s. We should probably get back home.”

“Absolutely. But first," he smiled at her and grinned a cheeky grin "we’ve got to make one more stop.”


	17. Epilogue

The records of Mary Read and Anne Bonny are full of holes, conjecture and tall tales. When one follows the easy links on the internet, one finds some estimates on their birth-date – close enough but no proof – and facts about their trial and subsequent sentence to death for pirating, for stealing the _William_ along with ten men who were also sentenced to death and swiftly executed. They were remarkable only because of their gender, because they were the only women during the 18th century on record as pirates in the Caribbean. 

Both had pleaded their bellies and were granted pardon until their children were born. That is fact. Mary Read allegedly died from a fever, possibly due to birth-complications, and Emm – or was it Anne? – Bonny bore her child and then was lost to the records, never mentioned anywhere again. The only certainty is that she hadn’t been executed. Where she went, if she survived, if she escaped… nobody knows. 

What isn’t, and could never be on the records, though, is that the same physician attended to Mary and Emm during labour and before. Who would think to note down the name of the man, after all? The guards would remember that he was tall and wore a posh green coat and talked a lot. That’s all they’d remember, but they might recall more about the midwives, as they’d both been very attractive. And the ginger one had slapped one of them for being too cheeky. They’d sure remember _her_ , and that gob of hers. 

But alas, guards were hardly able to write their own names at that time, and therefor nobody will ever know what truly happened to Emm – sorry, Anne Bonny. Or if Mary Read really died from a fever. Or if she died at all. 

All that people will remember is the story about Mary Read and Anne Bonny, famous pirates in the Caribbean. Possibly friends, possibly lovers. Probably both in a love-relationship with the infamous Captain Jack Harkham – sometimes misspelled into Rakham, or Rackham – who had, with their help, stolen the _William_ during a storm. Some might claim he was killed in the battle with the British ship that captured them. Some will say he jumped overboard in fright and drowned. Some would even claim they had records of him being carried away by dolphins who’d brought him to safety, and some others will believe he’d been killed by Bonny or Read for being in their way. 

Nobody, though, will ever say anything about Emmily Tylor, who one day appeared in Spanish Town with her best friend and her infant daughter. Nobody knew where she’d come from, but she soon made a name by being a fantastic tailor. Together with her friend, she opened a small shop that sold bespoke clothing for people of all incomes and lived a rather long life without ever coming to anyone’s particular attention. She never married, and her daughter inherited the shop and ensured that the good name carried on. Young Rosa Tylor married a Spaniard named Julio Escalito and the two of them lived happy and content till their old age.

****

“Doctor?”

“Yes?”

“Do we really need the full month-long timetravel-ban?”

“Rose… It’s on the list, right here. See?”

“Right. Of course. Just… is it one month in the meaning of thirty days from then on? Or thirty-one? Or rather four weeks? And do we count the days from when we started, or from when we realize that we broke a rule?”

“… It doesn’t specify…” 

~ End (for now?) ~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, that's it, folks. If you enjoyed this story, I wouldn't mind hearing about your thoughts. 
> 
> About the process - I'd searched long and hard about a plot, and I couldn't find the right one. After I'd realized I wanted Tony to get lost by accident, I still needed a setting, and it took embarrassingly long to decide on pirates, but once I did, I knew it had to have something to do with Anne Bonny and Mary Read. I'd read about them as a kid, and so I looked them up. While researching, I found this site: https://csphistorical.com/2016/05/08/anne-bonny-and-mary-read-female-pirates-and-maritime-women-page-one/ and while it took away all the background from those two women that the wikipedia page supplied, it gave me a lot more leeway with my story. Both Mary and Anne disappear from public records, and while Mary supposedly died from a fever, the only thing that was certain was that she wasn't executed. But what happened to her? Nobody knows. 
> 
> Who's to say that a certain Doctor _didn't_ get her out of prison, hm? 
> 
> I have the rescue/prison-break in my head, so if you're interested, just ask me. But for this story, the way I wrote it just works better, I think, so just let your imagination out and see for yourself. 
> 
> Thank you all for reading and leaving kudos - it really makes me happy! I might (no promises...) have one more story to tell in this verse. Let's see.


End file.
